Deep Sand Bed
Life in bed
Variety is key
Indo Pacific Sea Farms
Inland Aquatics
- DSB Critters are here, scroll down
Surface dwellers (eat stuff on the surface, deposit onto surface): small harpacticoid copepod, small seed shrimps or ostracods
Upper sediment creatures (important cuz they deposit materials into the substrate): Fireworms, Nassarius snails, burrowing anemone, Phyllochaetopterus worms, cirratulid hair worms and the tube dwelling spaghetti worms,
Depth
4-8", deeper is better...4" is minimum. Approx. 3-4 lbs of substrate/gallon, altho this errs on the side of a deeper sand bed..
Content
Oolitic sand
- 70-85% 0.5mm - 0.063mm fine sand/silt (0.125 mm seems to be happy medium); this is where the micro critters make their homes and go about life.
- 40% 0.125 - 0.625 mm
- 30% 0.125 - 0.25 mm
- 15% 0.25 - 0.5 mm
- 10% 0.5 - 1.0 mm
- 5% > 1.0 mm
- All the fuss on grain size is here, IMHO, just get ffine sand and mix with 5-10% bigger stuff.
- In nature, silty sediments seem to house the largest numbers and variety of substrate life
Shimek doesn't recommend dead rock platforms for live rock, whereas some others do. I think that if you're going to have burrowers, the platforms may be helpful, altho Shimek recommends simply embedding live rock deep into the sand bed...which may ultimately prove to be better for burrowers, since they'll have a built in "ceiling", and risk of collapse is lower.
Even so, if a burrower is motivated, it could conceivably dig too deep and cause a rock to tip over, even if embedded.
Feeding DSB
For a 45 gallon tank, 1-2 tblsp thawed frozen plankton, diced fish, krill per day.
How To's for DSB
- From Inland Aquatics: Guide To Successful Live Sand Substrates this one needs to be viewed with a grain of salt, as they recommend sand sifters, which will consume DSB critters! So far, only sea cucumbers and sea urchins are recommended DSB macro inhabitants.
- ReefCentral's basics on DSB's with killer links
posted by cookies @ 2:13 PM
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