Deep Sand Bed
Getting back into the hobby after a few years off . This time I’m wanting to do most of my nitrate/ phosphate removal with macro algae and possibly a dsb experiment.. After reading lots about denitrifying bacteria and these zero oxygen areas that are needed for the process to work:
“With no available oxygen, denitrifying bacteria use the oxygen present in the nitrate to oxidize the carbon. This leads to the creation of nitrogen gas from nitrate, which then bubbles up out of the wastewater”
The bad is the creation of bad gases locked in the dsb. I’m thinking we can remove them and increase the removal of nitrate by :
If we utilized a deep sand bed (6-8 inches) and had a way of bubbling the whole thing like a protein skimmer every so often, like once every few months. The exact amount of time would be a project if its own. To let the bad gases/nitrogen escape. This would be done when the dsb is disconnected from the main tank to let the gases escape and all water could be sucked out. The dsb then could be left to settle and once happy no tank killer gases would be released into the tank, reconnected .
There could be other easier lazy ways;
such as gridding the dsb into 10-12 squares and vacuuming out a small section say once every month or two. Again disconnected from the main tank etc…
Or
Disconnected and just rinse out the bed etc
I personally think the future of reefing will be less mechanical and more algae based. So has anyone experimented at all with dsb ?
These are all just thoughts as again i think the future is algae and live rock is not porous enough to actually truly be used for large scale denitrifying bacteria removing nitrate.
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