Terrace in sand bed...

[CAPSLOK]

I looking to set up my new tank with a mostly shallow sand bed, but have a portion with a deep sand bed to house a pair of yellow head jawfish. My plan is to have the sand 1-2" around most of the tank, and at one edge have a roughly 6-8" wide section with the deeper sand (in a 40B, so it would be 6-8" by 18").

So my thought was to use some LR as a buttress to support the terrace, so that the sand doesn't just level back out. I'm having difficulty putting the picture in my head into words. Basically having a row of LR pieces at least 6" tall, with the sand on one side at 4-6" and the rest at 1-2". Hopefully I can actually build some of the aquascaping up off the LR terrace pieces - in my head it looks cool.

Overall plan is probably easy / low light corals (softies / shrooms). I have a candy/randall's pistol shrimp, will get him a goby friend too. And I will have LR rubble for the jawfish to make their burrow. I prefer not to have a PVC burrow in there - I'd rather provide them natural tools to make their own. Obviously the LR structure would all be stable on the bottom glass, what with the pistol and jawfish.

Anyone tried this or similar? (Pics please!)
Anyone have any suggestions or reasons why it wouldn't work - or any ways to improve the idea?

[hollister]

Well the LR and SB can be your best bio filteration. With proper care. And the minimum amount of LR and SB are 1 lb per gallon. I would go closer to 1.5 with the sand and the rock will rise with added frags.

Lots of bacteria live in that SB and need proper depth. I will tell you now its almost impossible to control sand depth and position. Water flow and tank creatures will move it around , which is good.

[CAPSLOK]

Yes, I plan to have more LR built up than just the terracing pieces (I must have over 40-50lbs in my 20g right now, which will be moved into the 40g when I upgrade into it, and have some more added to it). I know sand won't just stay in a nice pile, that's why I'm hoping using the LR as a sort of retaining wall will keep the higher portion in place.

RC sand bed calculator suggests having a 1.5" sand bed in a 40B would be approx 45lbs of sand, I was figuring probably ~65-70lbs or so would do the sand bed plus the terrace.

What do you mean by "the rock will rise with added frags"?

[horwitzs]

I've done something similar in a small nano tank, it looked pretty neat as long you don't have bottom dwelling critters that will mess it up.
I'll dig for a pic and add it to this post if I can find it tonight... hopefully brb!

EDIT: Found a pic... I ended up pulling the terrace up a bit higher to make a bigger step, but this is the only picture I could find.
Obviously a bit different since it's a much smaller tank, but you get the idea:

http://i279.photobucket.com/albums/kk138/horwitzs/IMG-20111024-00079.jpg

[horwitzs]

I've done something similar in a small nano tank, it looked pretty neat as long you don't have bottom dwelling critters that will mess it up.
I'll dig for a pic and add it to this post if I can find it tonight... hopefully brb!

[CAPSLOK]

Oh cool Seth. Did you do that for anything specific, or just aesthetics? What are the rocks that you used to make the terrace?

[horwitzs]

Oh cool Seth. Did you do that for anything specific, or just aesthetics? What are the rocks that you used to make the terrace?

It was just for looks to try something different, along with the dark sand. This was a Fluval tank i set up as a nano so I could take it on the road with me when I was moving every several months for work.
Because it's so small I was actually able to buy a preformed little wall from the pet store. I saw it while I was there getting something else and bought it on impulse.
I stacked rock rubble along the back wall and had a little goby and a blood shrimp, and just a few tiny snails and hermits.

[biocube14g]

If u could pull off that much of a cliff, that would be sweet.... Reminds me of Nemo when there was just a random huge cliff in the ocean. Lolz

[Steve175]

A simple liverock retaining wall will not work. You will need to have a solid structure or the sand will slip through the gaps and eventually even out. You could use epoxy or mortar to fully fill in the gaps between your LR retaining wall. Also, the retaining wall ideally should extend a bit higher than the level of the raised sanded: otherwise the jawfish will likely spit the sand from their daily excavations onto the lower level. I like the concept/let us know if it works/post pics.

[JSeymour]

Bend a strip of acrylic six inches wide, or whatever depth you desire, into the shape you want for the terrace. Secure this in place with live rock (and silicone for something more permanent) on the visible side. The acrylic will keep the sand on the upper terrace for the most part and keep the gobies from attempting to tunnel out.

[biocube14g]

Good idea. /\
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[CAPSLOK]

Good ideas. I like the idea of acrylic as long as I can get it to be invisible behind the sand/LR. I think that should be possible. Especially with little bits of LR rubble to stick in any gaps. Plus building the wall with rubble pieces and/or epoxying it in there should make it contain the sand.

And having the acrylic may stop the jaws from stealing pieces of my wall for their burrow... or else epoxying everything in certainly would prevent theft.

Thinking about it more aesthetically, and looking at Seth's picture, I think it may work better as a triangular corner terraced area (curved area?) rather than just along an edge of the tank being higher.