Nothing only LR to seed DSB - no detritivore kits

[mattsilvester]

Hi All,

Simple question. I have a 150 gal BB sps / lps display, with plenty of LR. I want to add a DSB: 4" of dry sugar fine aragonite sand. Here in BKK, the LFS's don't sell LS or detritivore kits etc. How do I go about adding a DSB? Do I just add 4" of sand and hope for the best (I'll do that by sinking bags of sand, and slowly pouring it out).

The rock was pretty fresh in the first instance, and has been in the tank about 3 months or so.

Thanks.

[billdogg]

if you can find a piece of large diameter pvc you can use it as a "funnel" to help minimize the sandstorm and cloudy water. I would just go ahead and add it all at the same time and allow it to be populated from the existing LR. It may take awhile longer to establish without the addition of a CUC, but it will work just fine. You could see if a LFS will let you have (or purchase) a cup or two of substrate from them to help it along.

FWIW - I have never used anything other than dry sand and dry base rock for any of my tanks - all are plenty alive now!

[mattsilvester]

if you can find a piece of large diameter pvc you can use it as a "funnel" to help minimize the sandstorm and cloudy water. I would just go ahead and add it all at the same time and allow it to be populated from the existing LR. It may take awhile longer to establish without the addition of a CUC, but it will work just fine. You could see if a LFS will let you have (or purchase) a cup or two of substrate from them to help it along.

FWIW - I have never used anything other than dry sand and dry base rock for any of my tanks - all are plenty alive now!

That is encouraging. I think I'll just go ahead and add it unless I get a long list of nay-sayers. My live rock is very "alive". It came complete with encrusting sps coral, and over a dozen crabs, and loads of feather dusters and apistas (the latter two have been cleaned up by peppermint shrimps). I can get some CUC, but not the specific / specialised range that is available to many members here. I can get the standard algae-eating stails, blue leg hermits, brittle stars and blue linckia's, cleaner and pep' shrimps, etc.

I added sand to a tank a few years back. Basically I just put a few lb's in a small plastic bag zip bag, drop it to the bottom of the tank, carefully open the bag and slowly poured the sand out. It worked very well.