nitrate question

Excellent information.

 

I decided to do even more reading on this subject (as the ultimate goal is to help reduce the nitrates which the op was asking about). I'm laughing because people do it all different ways and whichever they choose seems to work. So, perhaps the best answer regarding the sand is to do whichever you like. But, a skimmer is a good idea and you may really have to look at your fish list. FWIW, I only had 2 fish in my 65g. As I said earlier, I'm a huge supporter of understocking and you are definitely pushing the limits for a 55 gallon system.

 

There can be a great variety of toxins in the SB.Food and detritus are not automatically converted into Nitrates so they are in various stages of decay when trapped in the SB. There also maybe areas of anaerobic conditions present even in SSB's especially areas under/around rocks were the sand is compacted.Also micro fauna populations tend to wax and wane in the aquarium and these things when they die will cause small pockets of toxicity .There are new findings recently of denitrification occuring even in aerobic areas so I wouldn't discount the ability of SSB's at keeping themselves clean.Besides the addition of snails a healthy microfauna population is also important as they will help breakdown waste. Constantly vacuuming the sand will remove there food and maybe kill them outright.The only hazard I see with not vacuuming is the inevitable compacting of the sand which IME is easily remedied with snails/microfauna.

 

Thank you for getting back to me. You gave great reasons for not manually disturbing any sand bed.

I had different tanks with different beds. One had a dsb and nitrates were at 0. My shallow sand bed was vacuumed and nitrates were still at 0. And your bed is not vacuumed and your nitrates are 0. I've also know many people who run bb tanks and their nitrates are 0. I'm glad we all talked about this so as to help the op consider different options for keeping his tank as clean and healthy as possible. Onward.