dgphelps
06/09/2004, 06:25 PM
I just upgraded a 29 gallon tank I had to a 50 gallon in hopes to get this sandbed thing down. Long ago when I setup the 29 you said the footprint was too small and even though over the 2 years I had it setup it had pods, worms, etc I knew it wasn't thriving either.
Here is a list of my tank inhabitants:
FISH
4 clarkei clowns captive raised siblings
INVERTS
2 small peppermint shrimp (I know they will eat anything but I like shrimp and they produce live food for my corals and fish regularly as well as eat aiptasia I had)
3 small hermits 2 blue legged one red.
1 flower/rock anemone not the nusiance type
2 strombus grazers (maculatus from ISPF) hopefully more when they breed
handful of stomatella varia
20+ micro brittle stars
pods from live rock + a bag of 100+ pods from floridapets.com
3 turbo snails
7 nassarius vibex snails
3 astrea snails
3 cerith snails
2 magarita snails (got these BEFORE I read your article)
CORALS
finger leather
xenia
green star polyps
zoanthids
2 small montipora SPS frags
When I setup the new 50 I used southdown size silica based "dead" sand to make a 3-4 inch sandbed. This I seeded with 8 cups from my old tank and 1 pound of live mud from floridapets.com with visible worms and other things moving around. The snails and such move the sandbed nicely and since I set the tank up a little over 3 weeks ago there are many bubbles in the top inch and some further down. There a also a few noticable worm tubes. I partitioned off a back corner with a pane of glass and filled this with live rock rubble. This is teeming with all sizes of pods and worms and since flow towards the bottom is restricted there are very tiny pods that swim around at all times.
I feed my tank heavily with a homemade mix loosely based on Eric Borneman's recipe mixed with cyclopeez. I also have 24 hour good skimming. My water parameters are also on par with Randy-Holmes Farley's suggestions in his recent article. I only dose my tank with Kalkwater. I use NSW from water changes with sporadic low metal salt mix water changes when i can't get the NSW. I change 5 gallons weekly.
Now that I have a wordy intro I would like to ask a few questions about the functionality of my sandbed once it is up and running.
1. Should I remove the shrimp? Would two be enough to decimate my sandbed fauna?
2. The hermits are out too right? I don't like these and if it were a shrimp or hermits question they would definitely go. I do like the shrimp though. :)
3. With the larger footprint and the information I provided above should I be able to keep a working sandbed in this new tank? Of course I plan on adding 1-2 yearly recharges with kits from online vendors and sand from other established beds.
4. What signs should I watch for to see if anything is going wrong?
5. Anything else I should do or perhaps that I am doing incorrectly from my info above? Words of advice?
Thank you for the time you give to all of us on RC and by writing your articles. I appreciate you and your work very much.
-Daniel
Here is a list of my tank inhabitants:
FISH
4 clarkei clowns captive raised siblings
INVERTS
2 small peppermint shrimp (I know they will eat anything but I like shrimp and they produce live food for my corals and fish regularly as well as eat aiptasia I had)
3 small hermits 2 blue legged one red.
1 flower/rock anemone not the nusiance type
2 strombus grazers (maculatus from ISPF) hopefully more when they breed
handful of stomatella varia
20+ micro brittle stars
pods from live rock + a bag of 100+ pods from floridapets.com
3 turbo snails
7 nassarius vibex snails
3 astrea snails
3 cerith snails
2 magarita snails (got these BEFORE I read your article)
CORALS
finger leather
xenia
green star polyps
zoanthids
2 small montipora SPS frags
When I setup the new 50 I used southdown size silica based "dead" sand to make a 3-4 inch sandbed. This I seeded with 8 cups from my old tank and 1 pound of live mud from floridapets.com with visible worms and other things moving around. The snails and such move the sandbed nicely and since I set the tank up a little over 3 weeks ago there are many bubbles in the top inch and some further down. There a also a few noticable worm tubes. I partitioned off a back corner with a pane of glass and filled this with live rock rubble. This is teeming with all sizes of pods and worms and since flow towards the bottom is restricted there are very tiny pods that swim around at all times.
I feed my tank heavily with a homemade mix loosely based on Eric Borneman's recipe mixed with cyclopeez. I also have 24 hour good skimming. My water parameters are also on par with Randy-Holmes Farley's suggestions in his recent article. I only dose my tank with Kalkwater. I use NSW from water changes with sporadic low metal salt mix water changes when i can't get the NSW. I change 5 gallons weekly.
Now that I have a wordy intro I would like to ask a few questions about the functionality of my sandbed once it is up and running.
1. Should I remove the shrimp? Would two be enough to decimate my sandbed fauna?
2. The hermits are out too right? I don't like these and if it were a shrimp or hermits question they would definitely go. I do like the shrimp though. :)
3. With the larger footprint and the information I provided above should I be able to keep a working sandbed in this new tank? Of course I plan on adding 1-2 yearly recharges with kits from online vendors and sand from other established beds.
4. What signs should I watch for to see if anything is going wrong?
5. Anything else I should do or perhaps that I am doing incorrectly from my info above? Words of advice?
Thank you for the time you give to all of us on RC and by writing your articles. I appreciate you and your work very much.
-Daniel