Flat or hilly sand beds
 

Ok i just put my sand in my tank and i hate it its flat as aparking lot. before i had small tanks but now with a 6 ' tank it make a difference and i find that the even bottom looks, well flat. Is it possible to make hills without making a DSB by accident and the trouble it brings, thats my concerns. It like to make some kind of different levels without the problem of the DSB , anyone tried that. Thanks for your input.


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This is in my display refigium where i'm trying to do a wavy thing but not sure with the DSB, what do you think?

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Ur rock work looks rly good dude. But just out of curiosity how come it looks like it will be sticking out well above water lvl? As for sand bed u should get a sifter goby. Then u will have a forever changing sand bed that will be auto cleaned. That's only if u don't decide on getting LPS that's stays on sand bed like scoly or plates etc. I constantly have to blast sand off them -.- kinda dreadful lol.

I think so long as you have critters that move sand (conch, nassarius snails, etc) your sand will end up flat-ish. I'd say the benefits of a clean up crew outweigh the aesthetic advantage of wavey sand. :)

- Ian

I think you may find that once you put water and flow in there, that your sand bed is going to contour itself to the dynamics of your tank, despite what you want it to do. Ultimately what will probably end up trumping the aesthetics of your sand topography is the flow that you will want to achieve.

My sand is not flat...I do siphon my sand though.

+1 on that. The flow in the tank will determine the end look, you can't really plan for that.
Looking good BTW!

+1. Sandbed and anemones are two things that you can't keep the way you want it or the place you want it to be :razz:

You've noticed hey...lol. This is due to three things. First when i did the sculpture it was braced on 1/2" pvc pipes but they cracked so i had to replace it with 1" pipe but forgot that extra 1/2" inch it gave the structure, then the weight of the thing was too great to put in on its feet so it rest on tw sheets of 1/2" of plexiglass so it too raised the sculpture again. Then the third reason is i'm an idiot, like i said in my videos on making these sculptures, dont start sculpture until you have your tanks as point of refference for your scale or you'll have issues with scales ... i started without my tanks , yep.... didn't listen to my own recomendations.So there you have it lol. But it actually wont be a big problem really. But it almost was. Anyway if you want to see how i did it this is the link; http://www.canreef.com/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=98466

Add a pistol shrimp you'll never have flat sand

I've got a diamond head goby, - always changing sandbed.

I actually thought the rock above the water was kind of a neat look, never seen it before. Plus it gives the critters a place to sun tan which can ease tank stress.

I actually like it too , it'll be like an island and my crabs will climb on it like they do on the volcano tank i'm told by some. Its also a good size to put my beer when i work in the tank, lol:biggrin:

I have a deep sand bed and I have a nassarius snails and a tiger pistol shrimp in there so it is ever changing... and yes like other have said, depending how you postion your power heads, you can arrange them so that small hills will form, but I don't do that, at least not on purpose