Live sand source

AndyL · #1 02-21-2005, 07:41 PM

Hey folks,

Doing some research on what I'm going to need to keep a good DSB for the pred tank... Ron shimieks writings make it rather apparent that you need GOOD live sand, and regular recharges...

I've never spied any live sand in stores, do any of the stores bring it in regularly?

Alternatively, do any of the canadian mail order places sell the recharge kits Dr Ron mentions in his DSB rantings? I'm going to guess that it would be less than fun to try to get them across the border...

tnx,

Andy

danny zubot · #2 02-22-2005, 10:24 PM

By recharge kit do they mean bacteria loading? You could probly buy a cup of sand off of anyone locally every once in a while to achieve that.

AndyL · #3 02-22-2005, 11:40 PM

If I understand the articles correctly, he's saying that one needs to recharge with good (freshly dug up) live sand - or a recharge kit of critters who populate the sand bed.

Once LS has been in a system for a length of time, he claims there's a dieoff of certain species, and predation reduces those numbers even further. Resulting in a much smaller variety of critters than would be needed to maintain a healthy DSB. Reading through some of the posts on DSB crashes - this seems pretty true, most of the systems that have DSB crashes, are inhabited by sand sifting gobies, have not had regular recharges of critters etc.

So far, about all I've found is JL will bring in 50lbs (minimum order) of live sand for 4.65 a pound (crap thats more than live rock!). Way more than I want/need.

Andy

danny zubot · #4 02-23-2005, 02:03 PM

Sounds a bit funny to me, like they might just be trying to market a product or something. I've heard of tank crashes but never heard of recharging, I'll have to do some research before I'm a believer.

EmilyB · #5 02-23-2005, 07:44 PM

Back in Ron's glory days when sandbeds were more popular, it was quite common to try and achieve this recharging and I used to do it quite regularly with live sand from SW connection. (Sand from their rock curing tanks).

However, I believe in recent years even the Doc admitted it was not possible to achieve/maintain the diversity required to really keep a sandbed viable.

Aquattro · #6 02-23-2005, 08:10 PM

EmilyB is correct. If you look at some of Dr. Rons' more recent writings, he has retracted much of what he preached a few years back. Getting true live sand, keeping it live for any length of time and ever being able to recharge it is closr to myth than reality. Many of us tried this method, only to end up with dirty smelly (and dead) sand beds.
This is now the reason you see so many threads on bare bottom or starboard, etc, rather than DSB.

AndyL · #7 02-24-2005, 12:19 AM

Ah gotta love it... as recently as last week he's been pointing people to his article preaching DSB benefits... Saying they're maintainable.

I was planning a mixed approach for the sump on my pred tank - use a DSB in the sump, in combination with some macro on top. So I'd probably be best to just go straight to a sump full of macro algae?

Andy