This is what our tank looks like so far....
 

You certainly do have a lot of sand in there!! :shock:

Yes, we have 240 lbs of sand in our 90 gal tank. That is about 5 inches or so... We used a sand calculator to figure out how much sand we needed. We will put some into the hospital tank and possibly into the sump. I wanted a nice DSB.

Is that only 5 inches? It looks deeper! Looks good though. I imagine we'll see some pics with the canopy tomorrow?

Nice 8)

My sand bed has to be topped up every six months or so. It is seriously low right now again. I might have had 3 plus inches and it is bordering on 1 inch now.

I haven't given it much thought since the nitrates are fine. However, I worry about my tigertail, he needs some. Maybe he digests the stuff???? :?

Yes, hopefully you will! We are getting closer and closer to having it all running. Yeah.

Em, that's weird. I can honestly say I have the same amount of sand now as I did two years ago. If any has dissolved, it would likely be millimeters in 6 months, not inches!!

Hmmm.. :?

Any ideas? It's done that for years now.

I do water changes btw... :P No...I don't vacuum it, lol...

No reactor, no Kalk...

measure for Ca and Alk regularly.

Is it all cuke poop???

You're not alone Em, my tank has been running for almost 2 years now, and I also find my sandbed decreases in size slowly over the year. Perhaps 1" per year is a rough guess?

I just added 1-1.5" of sugar sand on top of my existing fine crushed coral and now it looks great again. We'll see how long that lasts.

But... In my little 12gal Eclipse tank which has been running about the same amount of time with the same fine crushed coral, no sandbed loss.

So perhaps your tiger-tail theory is sound as I have two as well as a pink/black hawaiian cuke in my main tank?

Em,

Remember the Caribsea claim : it buffers and add calcium to your tank. That's probably me guess.
- Victor.

But aragonite isn't supposed to dissolve until the pH is about 7.7 or less.... :?

I would imagine that in the anaerobic zone of a mature and undisturbed DSB (I'm talking the bottom area...not where a tigertail resides) you'll have PH low enough to dissolve the sandbed.
There's your reactor, Em. :wink:
Didn't you tell me once that your tank Ca was higher than your waterchange Ca?

BC_grl, the page won't load for me...gateway times out or something :?

Mitch

The picture won't load for me either. Possibly an error in the url?, or just Shaw?

Mitch, I think you pointed out what may be happening. Deb is adding water with less Ca than the tank. The solution is trying to reach an equilibrium and the reaction favors the dissolution of the aragonite. In my tank I don't notice any sand dissolving because My Ca is forced higher with a Ca reactor.
I could be way wrong, but I think the idea is sound!

Must've been a shaw thing- because it works fine for me when I tested it. When I take a better picture- one that is not so large, I will post another one.

Just tried it again, and it will not work. I don't have bloody cable, only dial-up, but it should still work. :?

Interesting Mitch. :)

Yeah, it still works for me Jeanna, and I'm on Shaw.

Works for me now at work with shaw.
At home last night it would not work with telus adsl.

May :x be it is a horribly large file, and dial-up just gives up trying to download it.

For those that can't get it...


http://www.islandreef.ca/post/image006.jpg

Cool! You have a person holding a camera in your tank! Where can I get one of those? What does it eat? HHHHHHEHEHEHEHE :D

Thanks Brad for showing it as I was unable to down load it as well. Nice color choice on the cabinet Jeanna!!! You sure do have a lot of sand in there, I look forward to seeing it in person some day. Rachel

I FOUND THE PROBLEM

http://MEMBERS.shaw.ca/bc_grl/reef.htm
this is what it's suppose to be!

Cool your on your way. Now be prepared for staring at your tank with an empty glaze for hours on end :shock: :lol: . Good luck :wink: .

Nice start Jeanna. You're really going to enjoy it.

About the reflection off the glass, if you turn off the lights in the room and remove any ambient lights such as daylight from windows, and you use only the light from the tank without a flash, then you can take a photo directly from the center of the tank without any reflection.