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Originally Posted by Canadian Man
But automaticaly everyone starts blaming the sand bed because they read a thread on RC about it. Next we will all be ripping out our sandbeds   |
maybe both you and bob should read my post again.. I said it could be a possability, not that it absolutly was.
frankly I started suspecting something was wrong with my sand bed befor I ever saw that post. if you want to get technical it was about 8 months ago when I started wondering if it was the cause of my problems.
If you ask Teevee he had all the same types of sand bed disruption laitly that I noted brought on diatom and algae out breaks.
Bob as for cyno being a normal algae process I will call BS on that one.. Cyno is a bacteria not a algae so how can it be a normal algae cycle? Cyno is simple.. something is allowing a bacteria to culture in your tank. for what it is worth I never got cyno once in my tank and I didn't get any algae outbreaks untill my sand bed was over 6 months old. and then what I noticed is that if my sand bed was disturbed with in a week I would get a gold/brown algae outbreak along with some diatoms. this would subside after a week or two then would reapear a week after the sand bed got disrupted again. (usaly from a power head).
I do believe in the merits of a sand bed but I think everyone jumped on the DSB bandwagon with out even researching it fully (even myself I hate to admidt. DSBs were one thing I never realy researched but rather I took for gosple as we had Dr Ron saying they were so good, and all the reefers with tanks that were less that 1 year old praising there DSBs) now that my tank was ripped apart and the opertunity afforded its self I started reading and finding that the people who are having the least algae outbreaks and the most sussess seam to be running about a 1 to 2" bed instead of a 4 to 6". there are several reasons that make sence for this but if you have a DSB you are going to automaticly not want to believe them as I did untill reciently. Even the good Dr is now saing that a DSB isn't going to work in our tanks as we have a average of only 14 of the 1000+ different types of organisms needed to make a DSB work. also it is documented that a DSB is a phosphate trap and the surface of the sand has elavated levels of phosphate while the water colume shows none or very little (this is why people are getting algae growing on the sand bed) so this is not only a idea that I came up with after that thread.. I have been thinking the DSB was my problem for 8 months now but like other I was trying to find every reason for it to be something else (by the way.. 8 months ago puts the age of my sand bed at 7 months old. I did feed heavy but my water tested perfect as the sand bed was adsorbing all the nutrents. besides we were always told to feed the DSB heavy). no one wants to admidt they spent a tone of money on something they didn't need to. I got over that part though as I have spent a insain amount of money on this tank that a 300 buck bill for sand isn't phasing me anymore
and I don't know weather this is good or bad..
I am also not saying that everyone with a DSB should tear it out but they should keep there eyes open and start a log of events. then at least is your can't see any coralation at the pressent time maybe a year from now you will look at your log and start seeing a patteren like I did. some of the things I wrot in my log was any time I fed a new food, when ever a pump quite working, or came lose, any time there was a disruption of the sand bed, new additions, when I harvested algae, and when fish died (this is what tipped me off to the toxic effects of some types of calurpa) ect..
so as you can see I am not being a bandwagon jumper this time like
WE ALL WERE when we started our DSBs but rather I am only taking the next logical step to iron out some issues that I have observed in my tank. and I am not saying Teevee it is definatly your DSB, but rather think about it and see if there are any coincidents or factors that could lead you to suspect your DSB and don't rule it out because Bob or CM said so and don;t assume it is the DSB because I sad so.. you have to watch your tank and rule out one thing at a time.
now who's soap box was I standing on?
Steve