silica sand is very hard on the pods, in my main tank with argonite sand my pods reach huge sizes. In the silica sump and my 10g nano the pods are small and bristle worms barely noticable. The sand cuts them to pieces.

I don't have a reactor and have to replace about 15lbs a year to the bed in a 54gal softie tank. If its not dissolving and buffering, my crabs must be sweeping it under a rock :biggrin: .

No Jeff,

The copepods eat it.. Didn't you know that?

There's no buffering happening in a reef tank.. none at all. :rolleyes:

I've NEVER had to add sand due to it breaking down. It's all copepods. I am telling you..

:rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes:

:eek: yours do that to... I think mine were just weird.

seriously though there might be a little buffering going on but not enuf to stop a tank from crashing if not helped. there were sand comparasons done a while ago whare they set up tanks with the 3 different types of sand.. they all had PH crashes with in a time period and the results were that a sand bed will not buffer a tank enuf on its own.

if you think about it the place the desolving is happening it would be at the bottom of the sand bed, maybe a little makes it throught the sand to get into the water coulme but I would guess most of it is just turning to finer substances and remaining as your bottom layer of the sand bed. because they are breaking down into smaller particles they take up less space and compact a bit.. therefor your sand bed settles and "Appears" to be desolving.

If you would quite tearing them down you might have to :mrgreen:

Steve