# Seeding a Deep Sand Bed



## cheseboy

What are the best critters to add to a DSB to stir the sand and keep the bed clean and in tip top shape? I have heard about pods and worms and those are pretty good but what about the questionable stuff like micro-stars and snails? I want to seed my live sand bed but I don't have a source I can get a definite good source of live sand chock full of organisms. LFS's usually have nothing in their live sand but bacteria and with people online the only think you can do is guess to see who really has a good live sand and weather it will arrive alive but they do sell the organisms separate so I can easily know I'm going to get what I want. How did you guys seed your beds with a diversity of organisms?


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## Reefneck

"Seeding" live sand is mainly the bacteria! If you want animals to sift the sand bed that's different. Sand Sifting stars will soon devour the good things in your sand bed. Snails that burrow are a good addition and a Sand Sifting Goby is the best way to keep it stirred. Pods will come with time.


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## cheseboy

OK then, I have a friend with an established reef that wants to give me sand but he is not sure what taking sand out will do to his bed. After all the idea of a DSB is to have an anaerobic part, the Bed will be destroyed if the anaerobic part is gone. Won't his PH get screwed up also and can I add pods to my tank to get my sand infested?


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## Reefneck

You only need a small cup of sand to seed from. Should not do any harm taking such a small amount.


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## flamingo

You can buy pods offline to seed the sand, but I would just leave that to the live rock and macro. Pure copepods will cost about 40 bucks. I bought some macro (chaeto) from marty (mala) that was about 7 bucks and a month later I had pods, starfish, and baby feather dusters everywhere.

Infact he has some up now with a few frags included!


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## harif87

Hey you want some copepods?? They come to me free in my water supply.....when i first started using unfiltered water from my tap for my FW tank i noticed them clinging on to my goldies.....maybe i could ship you a container of water that has pods and theyll reproduce in your tank if you want....


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## flamingo

harif87 said:


> Hey you want some copepods?? They come to me free in my water supply.....when i first started using unfiltered water from my tap for my FW tank i noticed them clinging on to my goldies.....maybe i could ship you a container of water that has pods and theyll reproduce in your tank if you want....



Freshwater copepods and satwater copepods are different.....?


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## harif87

flamingonhot said:


> Freshwater copepods and satwater copepods are different.....?


Well the truth is there are hundreds (if not thousands) of species of copepods and i dont think fish are too particular on which kind theyll eat. But yeah theyll definately survive in saltwater (the ones from the tap). I even think SW is better for them and they settled for FW in the reservoir...


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## flamingo

lol I knew that there are thousands of species but I never thought freshwater ones could survive in saltwater ( wonder why I thought this? lmao). The only time I ever heard of them was when I was trying to raise baby seahorses, I couldn't get ahold of saltwater copepods or rotifers so they said try getting fw copes from a lake. I was like huh? lol I think I had them in my tanks at one time though?

Never had them really, well once maybe a long time ago, so couldn't tell you much there.


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## harif87

All i could say is that theyre annoying little things when you dont have fish who eat them........The only reason why i know from copepods is because NYC's water supple was recently contaminated with them so we gotta use filters or drink water filled with hundreds of parasites....

BTW, post some pics of your seahorse man!


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## flamingo

Eww lmao. I would have filters on every faucet in the house lol.

Btw, I have posted pics! I'm going to take some pics of my fish this week and make a topic though so it'll be a little updated. The 30 gallon is actually still cycling (hence it being up for 6 days). All it has in it is some established live rock and a handful of macro. lol the wait is killing me! I still have to buy a lot of stuff though, basically taking it really slowly lol.


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## harif87

flamingonhot said:


> Eww lmao. I would have filters on every faucet in the house lol.
> 
> Btw, I have posted pics! I'm going to take some pics of my fish this week and make a topic though so it'll be a little updated. The 30 gallon is actually still cycling (hence it being up for 6 days). All it has in it is some established live rock and a handful of macro. lol the wait is killing me! I still have to buy a lot of stuff though, basically taking it really slowly lol.


Nice, gotta find where they posted...From what i understand seahorses are hard as hell to keep healthy, tons of luck to you with them my man:-D


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## flamingo

lol thanks. If you haven't found it already here's the link: seahorse

The thing is, there's so many people saying how hard they can be, if you just research them a ton before starting and payclose attention to water quality and behavior they're pretty easy to keep! Still a little harder then stuff like clownfish adn all, but not impossible or anything lol.


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## leveldrummer

so back on topic!!! i dont think you want something that stirs sand too much on a deep sand bed, depending on how deep, stirring it can cause a crash. there are lots of bad stuff in deep sand.


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## cheseboy

Ok then, I'm probably just gonna order a large amount of live sand from an EBay store. I have my eye on the 10 pounder, that way if a small amount of sand isn't so full with inverts maybe a large amount will compensate even though they do claim to have lots of pods in their sand. Plus you have to account for potential die offs during shipping with something like this. If bigger (will do harm or) is not better in this situation please tell me.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=7769616740&ssPageName=MERC_VI_ReBay_Pr4_PcY_BIN_Stores_IT

Any thoughts?


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## leveldrummer

i think smaller is better, in fact i think no live sand is needed at all, put your sand bed in, add your live rock, and that will seed your sand. in no time, it will be crawling with little bugs. but if you want more biodiversity, you can get a small bag of LS and seed your sand bed with it. but i wouldnt buy all ls. just wastes money.


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