DSB in 65L Nano

Sounds like a sensible solution to me, although replacing all the live rock in a large tank every two years (which is essentially what you're suggesting, even if you spread it out over a long time) could be a fairly costly exercise - a hundred kilos at R150 per kilo comes to R15 000, or about R600 per month. Bear in mind also that there is some dispute as to whether old tank syndrome actually exists, or whether it's just a side effect of a variety of factors, including increased waste production over time (fish and corals grow over time etc, and we tend to add more and more), as well as increased lazyness on the part of the owner (or not necessarily lazyness, but rather complacency by the maintainer in the case of a tank which is very stable for a few years running, so checking and maintenance become less frequent/thorough).

PS: The above books (vol 3 in particular) has quite a bit more info on the topic.
 
Perhaps a cheaper solution would be to remove one rock and boil it in r/o to cleanse it, replace it and let the bacteria repopulate it, would still mean mucho messing around but would save loads of cash.
 
Sparky said:
Ok, so I'm going to get the stuff this weekend (if work will leave me alone!). I'm guessing the easiest way to do this is to empty the tank completely. Could I reuse the existing water, and would the tank go through a full cycle (4 weeks+)?
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Any ideas on the above?
 
No, I would not expect your tank to do a full cycle again, unless you kill off stuff in your live rock (keep it submerged in a bucket of you your existing water while you're tinkering with the new sand bed). I would use your existing water, and do a significant change within a day or two, while monitoring chemistry carefully. Clearly your existing shallow sand bed (you do have one, don't you?) will essentially disappear, so there will be some disruption to the nitrogen cycle, but I'd guess it would be fairly minimal, particularly if you re-use your existing sand in the DSB.
Adding some bacteria is probably not a bad idea for good measure. I use Nutrafin Cycle, but I've heard some others prefer other, similar products.
 
Quinton said:
No, I would not expect your tank to do a full cycle again, unless you kill off stuff in your live rock (keep it submerged in a bucket of you your existing water while you're tinkering with the new sand bed). I would use your existing water, and do a significant change within a day or two, while monitoring chemistry carefully. Clearly your existing shallow sand bed (you do have one, don't you?) will essentially disappear, so there will be some disruption to the nitrogen cycle, but I'd guess it would be fairly minimal, particularly if you re-use your existing sand in the DSB.
Adding some bacteria is probably not a bad idea for good measure. I use Nutrafin Cycle, but I've heard some others prefer other, similar products.
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I currently have crushed coral on the bottom, so I think I should completely remove that. As for the Cycle stuff, does it actually do what it says it should? I've read so many conflicting statements about it. If it works, I'm more than happy to put it in.
 
Hi Sparky, I have no experience with any type of cycle product, so can't help you there.

My recommendation is if you are going to remove your crushed coral, do it after you have removed the water, I'm pretty sure there will a bit of muck in the substrate and I don't think you would want this in your new tank.
 
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