ac110 fuge sand or no sand

[jeremyj0247]

I setup a 10gal tank with an ac110 fuge on it. Now I am wondering If I should put sand in it or just rock and macro. I am getting some cheato and I have a bunch of live rock rubble to put in there. If you think I should put sand in it how much do you think. inch, two, three. thanks for all your help.

[Rosseau]

I doubt that a sand bed will help you anywhere near as much as LR rubble or crushed coral and chaeto would.


You may even have trouble getting all the sand to stay inside of the filter. It may clog up the pump too.

I think that having LR rubble in there will give you a much larger overall surface area for bacteria than sand.

[Rosseau]

(hmm.. maybe I need to think about that SA thing a little more)

[Capt_Cully]

i agree, bag the sand in the refugium. let LR rubble and the macro do the work for you.

[Agu]

I don't even bother with the macroalgae, rubble and darkness and I call it a cryptic zone refugium.

And yeah the sand isn't a good idea in an AC filter.

[jeremyj0247]

cool, thanks guys.

[yankeereefer]

Leave it to me to be the contrarian

I have AC fuges on a couple of my tanks - The 20H has a AC110 and one of my 5.5g's has an AC70. Both of them have sand, rubble and macro (chaeto)

IMHO, I feel the sand has it's benefits. I guess it all depends on what you're doing with the fuge. If it's just for additional filtration (live rock), then yes maybe skip the sand.

The sand in my AC's coupled with the rubble and macro prove to be an excellent "nursery / breeding ground" for pods. I have tons of pods in the fuges all throughout the chaeto and swarming on the rubble and sand.

[jeremyj0247]

yankeereefer- I see that you have both a wennerae and a smithii. Which one do you like better? Which one is more active? The 10gal I setup is for one of those mantis. I have not decided which one I want to get.

[yankeereefer]

Sorry for the late reply -

My stats need updating. The wenn died a couple months back as a result of a failed molt. The smithii is still doing great though.

It's hard to say which I like best - Both are / were very interactive and visible. The only real downside to the smithii is that it will disappear for it's molt up to 1.5-2 weeks.

Smithii started hunting amphipods in the tank the other day - Interesting to watch as I had never seen the wenn do it.

Both are/were very easy feeders - Margarita snails are constantly available in their tanks. I also feed them krill soaked in selcon. Periodically, I put an emerald crab in for kicks.

Working on a setup currently for an o.s. (Peacock) that's at my lfs right now.