Set up and Maintence of DSB

[edouglas]

Eric, I have searched and read a lot of articles you have written on dsb's. I know you believe in this and have seen where you have said over and over about proper set up. I have even saw in one article you mentioned poor dsb maintence could be the reason for a system failure. I have been searching for sometime now and can't find where you describe what proper set up and maintence is suppose to be. Can you please explain or point me in the right direction?

[Fredfish]

I'm not Eric but...

1. get sand
2. put in tank
3. seed with live sand from another source
4. leave sand alone

go to reefs.org and read Rob Toonan's 2 part article in the June and July issues of Advanced Aquarist. It seems that grain size and sand bed debth are less important than we thought.

Don't underestimate the importance of #4. Let the sandbed do its thing and it will.

Fred

[sihaya]

Better yet... read Ron's article. You can find it in a sticky in his forum. It seems like there's a little more to DSBs than just putting in the sand, seeding it with live sand, then leaving it alone. For instance, before reading his article, I had no idea how important average grain size is... and that many sand dwelling organisms are very picky about the size of the grains they burry themselves in. It's all quite facinating really...

[romunov]

DSB 101 (http://rshimek.com/reef/sediment.htm), and a few others (http://freeweb.siol.net/romunov/reef/dsb.html). :bigeyes: