sand bed questions

[super stooge]

hi,

im currently planning my next tank and plan on using a deep sand bed to help with my water conditions and was wondering if any1 could give me sum answers ona few questions i have.

1. what would my cuc need to include to care for my sand bed?

2. what would i have to do on a daily, weekly and monthly basis to maintain it?

thank you for any replies

[Fish_wiz2]

1. Definitely a star fish, sea cucumber, and other sand shifting organisms (find this at Dr. Foster & Smith live aquaria).
2. Well daily-nothing (CUC will care for this), weekly-siphon detritus (if present), monthly-stir sand bed (releases stuck detrius so filter can catch it).

[Loachmaniac]

I would stay away from cucumbers. While they offer some benefits and are good at CUC duties, they can kill everything in the tank if they freak out and spew toxin.

[jgrantham7]

Try conchs instead of cukes.

And there's a lot of controversy about stirring your sand bed. Many people feel that this releases trapped nitrites and nitrates and can lead to a crash. Do a search on sand beds in the forums for more information. YMMV.

[papagimp]

Since you are wanting a DSB, don't put any shrimp, hermits, starfish, cucumbers, or any other digging/burrowing specimens in the tank (fish wise anyways).

I'd recommend adding several nassarius and cerith snails, they will help stir the upper portions of the DSB as well as feed on plenty of the organics and meatier wastes building up down their (nassarius = meatier foods, ceriths = organic matter from substrate, detritus, ect. )

Other than those (strictly for sandbed btw, will need other snails for glass/rockwork) I wouldn't recommend anything else

Do not manually stire the sandbed at all.
Recommendpicking up Ron Shimeks small booklet on DSB secrets.
Dose phyto to help build up pod populations, and keep pod, bristle worm, and similar small critter/infauna eaters out of the tank. No wrasses, sandsifting gobies or anything like that.

All the previous comments I've read would be decent advice for a typical sandbed, a DSB however will need a little different approach. You'll rely heavily on the natural micro infauna and critters to do the work for you. So you dont want them being eaten. You don't want to distrub the sandbed, and a working DSB needs to be setup properly, don't confuse a DSB with simply a deep pile of sand in the tank. more to it than just that.

On a functional DSB, you shouldn't have any daily, weekly, or monthly maintance. Would be on an "as needed" basis for the most part, and shouldn't require much their either. Yearly/bi-yearly additions of refugium booster packs and/or some form of restocking the microlife (seeding from another reefers tank and whatnot) would be recommend IMO. Some populations of infauna just won't develope self sustaining populations but will need to be replenished regularly.

Try reading through some of these various articles, scroll down for ones more pertinant to sandbeds and the life therein.
http://www.ronshimek.com/Online%20Articles%201.htm

[super stooge]

thank you for the replies, ill read up on that link u gave me, ty