Sand beds: What do you need and why.

[Canadian]

I too did the DSB thing about 10 years ago. I followed "the Godfather's" (Ron Shimek's) gospel and did not disturb my sandbed. Things looked great for the first 1-2 years usually and then I would start to see obvious signs of accumulating organics and start running into problems. My response was to overhaul the tank including the sandbed and start fresh. Eventually I took a hiatus from the hobby for a few years when I had to move for school and vowed that when I returned I would never have a DSB again.

About a year ago I started up a nano SPS dedicated tank. I decided I'd try a SSB for aesthetics. That experiment lasted about 1 month before I got sick of seeing detritus accumulating in the sand despite copious amounts of nassarius snails and hermit crabs. When I moved my tank to Victoria I went BB - things were basically glorious. I then moved my tank when we moved into our new place last month. Under the influence of my fiance I added sand in the form of a SSB when I set the tank up again. I loved the aesthetic it supplied. I hated the organics it trapped. But, hey, I'm a guy and women make us do stupid things even when we know we shouldn't do them. Two days ago I yanked all the sand again and I will now remain BB for eternity unless someone comes up with some new fangled method of husbandry and some convincing explanations to get me to change.

I frequently read DSB proponents say that in a SPS dedicated tank you can still have a DSB as long as you're creative with your flow patterns. I don't want to compromise on the growth and color of my corals if I don't have to. I don't want to have to be creative with flow patterns when it would be easier to just blast away to my heart's content. With a BB I don't have to compromise and I can have what would be considered obscene numbers of fish with excessive feedings and still have to add amino acids to keep rich colors in my SPS. Personally, I would way rather have to add organics to my tank in a controlled fashion in order to keep nice colors than have to worry about how they are being sequestered, utilized and removed. But maybe that's just the control freak in me.