Mircale mud or sand in the Refugium

[vashawn]

Just getting back in the hobby!
What are u guys adding to your sump
Miracle mud, Sand, or just a few piece of live rock?

 

[OOtzie]

Mud mud mud!

 

[Skaters216]

I just ordered Mud for mine on recommendation from some experts. ( my little brothers ) they been doing this forever. And yes this is probably the first time I take my little brothers advice.

 

[Uprising Rage]

I have a deep sand bed in my refuge. Tank is 2 and a half years old. Since just lately I can't seem to get the nitrates down. They are staying in between 40 ppm and 80 ppm. I have gotten rid of my two biggest fish to lessen the bio load and then did 3 water changes last week changing 12% each time. This week they are creeping back up. I was thinking of trying some miracle mud in baskets in my refuge on top of my dsb. Some people in the reviews on marine depot say it solved their nitrate problem, but then I was looking on Google and on owe forum everyone said it was just a waste of money. What's everyone's thoughts? Should I give it a try? It is kind of expensive... But if it works as good as mike paletta and New York Steelo say it does.

 

[BioMan]

I won't say who, but the nicest SPS dominant tank with some decent sized tangs had only lots of live rock and a calcium reactor....

 

[Mattl22]

If my nitrates where that high I'd be doing some good wc and feeding every other even every third day and adding lots of special blend / nite out or similar might wanna start vinegar dosing also
Good luck

 

[Uprising Rage]

I can't be doing 3 12% water changes every week for the rest of my life... I have to figure this out.

 

[jackson6745]

I don't see the point of either but a shallow bed of either is better IMO, but still not necessary. A deep bed of mud or sand will store a lot of nutrients. Of course you'll grow macros like crazy . Many will argue that a DSB will have an anaerobic area that will aid in denitrification. IME this is true for a short time until the sandbed stores wastes, and then has the complete opposite effect.
There are also pics online of nice tanks that advocate mud because it replenishes 'trace mineral'. I never saw a lab analysis to back up such a claim, and I could show you a load of nice/nicer reefs that don't use mud.
IMO the benefit of either mud or sanded is added surface area for nitryifing bacteria. This aids in system stability greatly. It's no accident that many of the nicest reefs out there are LARGE. I suspect that the more bacteria in a system, the faster the nitrogen conversion happens, and less contact corals and fish have with harmful ammonia+nitrite (this is speculation though)

Anyway, sorry to carry on . I would just keep some clean pieces of live rock and cheato in the fuge.

 

[oseymour]

I can't be doing 3 12% water changes every week for the rest of my life... I have to figure this out.

12% water change doesn't actually reduce nitrates by much. Can you do larger? And you mentioned the DSB in the fuge. Is there anything in the display tank that could be causing the high nitrates? Heavy feeding?

 

[Uprising Rage]

Could the deep sand bed in the fuge be causing high nitrates? Like I said I never had this problem before. I haven't been feed very much at all, especially since the two biggest fish are now removed. Normally I just suck the detritus off the shallow sand bed in the display tank. Maybe I should try vacuum syphoning it with one of those plastic tubes? Or maybe remove the dsb in fuge? Has anyone else had this problem before and solved it? How long does it take normally for nitrates to drop, after removing large bio load fish?

 

[MikeC]

I don't see the point of either but a shallow bed of either is better IMO, but still not necessary. A deep bed of mud or sand will store a lot of nutrients. Of course you'll grow macros like crazy . Many will argue that a DSB will have an anaerobic area that will aid in denitrification. IME this is true for a short time until the sandbed stores wastes, and then has the complete opposite effect.
There are also pics online of nice tanks that advocate mud because it replenishes 'trace mineral'. I never saw a lab analysis to back up such a claim, and I could show you a load of nice/nicer reefs that don't use mud.
IMO the benefit of either mud or sanded is added surface area for nitryifing bacteria. This aids in system stability greatly. It's no accident that many of the nicest reefs out there are LARGE. I suspect that the more bacteria in a system, the faster the nitrogen conversion happens, and less contact corals and fish have with harmful ammonia+nitrite (this is speculation though)

Anyway, sorry to carry on . I would just keep some clean pieces of live rock and cheato in the fuge.

+1000000000:lol_large

 

[reefer4eva]

Could the deep sand bed in the fuge be causing high nitrates? Like I said I never had this problem before. I haven't been feed very much at all, especially since the two biggest fish are now removed. Normally I just suck the detritus off the shallow sand bed in the display tank. Maybe I should try vacuum syphoning it with one of those plastic tubes? Or maybe remove the dsb in fuge? Has anyone else had this problem before and solved it? How long does it take normally for nitrates to drop, after removing large bio load fish?

In my opinion I would remove all of that sand in the fuge as I'm sure it's not helping the situation.with such a low flow and it not sErving any benificial factor (lack of macro algae)alot of detritus I'm sure is just setting there Aswell as alot of dead matter.if you decide to either put sand or mud (I been using miracle mud for years)I wouldn't use as much maybe 1 inch-1 1/2 max.if you need any macro algae let me know I'll hook you up (chaeto,dragons breath,mangroves)also keep in mind even if your refugium was packed to the hilt with macro algae it still wouldn't be enough to export phosphates

 

[Uprising Rage]

I have a theory from what I saw last night at 3am. I witnessed a peppermint shrimp pulling a bristle worm from the live rock and eating it. The 2 peppermint shrimp used to be in my refugium to kill aptasia (which they eventually did) but now I'm thinking maybe they ate all the Bristle worms first which killed the deep sand bed. Is this logical??

 

[Will]

Do you have a shallow sand bed in your tank? If so then I would clean that with a tube to get all the garbage out of it. I have a shalllow sand bed and clean it (vacuum it with a tube) every water change. I get a lot of crap out of it when I do this.
I used o have a small tank with a sand bed which I didn't clean and I also could not keep the nitrates down with constant water changes.
Also as was mentioned above , I would get the sand out of the fuge as that may be compounding the problem.

 

[jdnumis]

Miracle mud