Hold your horses folks, let's take into consideration a few facts here and their relevance to these articles:

a. These were temporary, short term installations. Hardly set up for stability. They were not cycled properly and the actual equipment selection was unrealistic. Did anyone else notice the lack of massive flow, skimmers, cured live rock, etc?

b. The fundamentals of reef keeping are quality equipments, a good knowledge base, and routine maintanance. These procedures allow one to keep up with the dynamics of reef chemistry, organic cycles.

c. Sandbeds/plenums are a nightmare for maintanance. That's pretty self explanatory. Long-term results on properly set up (equipment, cycling, stocking, etc) BB tanks are numerically superior to those of DSB/plenum orientated strategies, IME.

For real guys, look at those experiments. Who in here has a tank that even remotely resembles those tanks (either in appearance or mechanics)?

*cough cough*

I don't think the death rates in their experiments would apply to an established tank; other factors would come into play in a newly set up tank.

The thing I found most interesting is that all tanks experienced a similar level of nitrate reduction- shallow or deep substrate.

It made me re-think the value of plenums and DSBs. I fact it should make us question what we think we know about how nitrates are reduced in our aquariums. Nitrate is obviously being reduced in areas other than anoxic zones

That's all in the eye of the beholder. See what the Europeans think of the GARF tanks and... Well, no, ask for yourself:

http://www.reefitalia.net/forums/index.php?

There's a few over there who speak English.

In contrast:

http://reefcentral.com/forums/showth...hreadid=971190

As far as I can tell, none of those tanks incorporate plenums and most use some form of probiotic (prodibio, zeovit, etc) or chemical filtration (carbon, phosphate reactors, etc) to keep their tanks low nutrient. Those methods are philosophically antithetic to those of DSB/plenum flavor; however, they will support substrate.

Anyway, like I said, it's all subjective. I'm sure the GARF method works, but they have access to live substrate. That's a pretty BIG advantage over us folks here.

As far as their knowledge base and experience goes, well, my opinion is beyond the scope of this post, but you'll find some pretty mixed reviews over on RC.

Drat, I should be doing homework, LOL!

That is pretty interesting.

*puts on thinking cap*

... Okay, that wasn't a good idea, I'm going to bed now, LOL!

Later.

Wow, talk about a mature tank. Looks like someone choped a section of reef out and stuck it in there. Beyond words. How many years would it take to get growth like that? Still speachless.

First my comments on plenums are in regards to running them correctly, as Jaubert intended and not the other dozen different ways aquarists have tried, some with success but most failing.

Second if dsb does not work, have a look at the coral growth in Nigel,s FTOTM and Quinn,s tank in the journal forum. :biggrin: Both of these aquarists have run dsb,s for some time. I cant speak for them but both have told me its part of their success.

Point being, they all work if done correct and properly maintained for that particular type of system.

Remember, Jaubert used only live sand from the Red Sea in his tanks. Makes all the difference if you can get live in-fauna. The crap that came out of my sand when I sucked it out after 2 years of running a DSB was something awful :eek:

Again, thats a dsb, as compared with a plenum. I do agree with the need for getting the correct livestock for both fine sandbeds & plenums. Most of Jaubert,s system were open to the sea, so they are not really comparable also. However he did run some closed systems. I,m not sure how the detritus accumulation would be in 5mm sized gravel. Seems to be less build up than in finer sandbeds, for whatever reason. I assume it has to do with it being broken down. Plus with my described idea, its easily siphon cleaned. The dividing screen would keep the bottom portion secure.

I will find Sprung,s article for here.

If a person did decide to go with a DSB is there a rule of thumb as to what livestock you'd want to introduce? I like snails, I think they do a fine job of keeping a sand bed clean as do Kole tangs and a number of other fish. I remember reading 1-2 snails per gallon but recently saw 2 per 10 gallons the later seems a bit weak to me. I really don't know which way to go I love the look of sand however a BB would be nice as well once the glass gets covered in coraline algae.

Still undecided and getting closer to adding water...

Doug