No need for anyone to get excited. I appreciate everyone's comments and I'll be starting out with some simply fixes - less food, more water changes. I stopped doing regular 20 gallon water changes and switched off to irregular 6 gallon water changes, and that may be a part of the problem. Another potential factor is the fact that my lights are getting old. I don't know if this is really an issue, but some people have suggested it might be. I will see if I can afford some new bulbs around Xmas.
I think the main thing to remember here is that one cannot make cause and effect statements based on correlation. These tanks are a bundle of variables, and it would take rigorous scientific testing to nail down the exact problems. For now I am going to attempt to treat the symptoms rather than the problem. Removing the DSB is not an option no matter what. As most of you know, I have to sell this tank this spring anyways. At that time the new buyer can do whatever they wish with the sand bed. There is no point in risking my livestock at this time.
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-Quinn
Man, n. ...His chief occupation is extermination of other animals and his own species, which, however, multiplies with such insistent rapidity as to infest the whole habitable earth, and Canada. - A. Bierce, Devil's Dictionary, 1906
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