Sand Bed Question

[Reefen]

Eric, I was reading your article in this months magazine about sand beds. I didn't know that you where not suppose to disturb them, I have been stirring mine up for a year now. Does this mean that I have destroyed all of the organisms that you talk about? If I leave it alone now will the sand bed develop properly.

[Evergreen]

An additional question on same topic: I missed where you mention particle size or # inches for optimal DSB. Dr Ron's says .125 to .002, plus he advocates certain sand-stirring (minor like small tubeworms, snails but not Stars and Cukes). What infauna do you advocate? What is best size grain and #inches DSB?
Kim

[EricHugo]

I really didn;t intend that article to be on sand beds, but merely to discuss particulate materials and detritus.

I don;t advocate or recommend anything like that except to say I feel a minimum of -34 inches is required, no maximum depth, predominantly fine grained sands for microbial productivity, a mix of some other areas of grain sizes to encourage biodiversity, and we are somewhat limited in our chocies (even fine grained commercial sands aren;t really all that fine). As for disruption, it will reestablish, but I'd highly suggest leaving he sand bed alone for many reasons.

[Reefen]

Eric, I did get that your article was about particulate materials and detritus, which I found interesting because I always thought detritus was a bad thing. Its just that my question was about the sand beds. Thanks :)