[Canadian]

trueblackpercula,

Yes, my intention with the shallow sand bed is to stir it frequently to remove detritus and use a gravel cleaner on it when doing water changes. I've kept tanks as small as 20g with DSBs and only as big as 90g as far back as 1999 and I don't like them at all despite some success. They worked short term (for the first year or two) but eventually they became a nightmare. With this tank I'm intending to go SSB and keep the sand clean with husbandry as above and a more aggressive clean up crew.



With respect to the skimmer changes. I'd like to change skimmers but as mentioned above, the skimmer compartment is quite small as it was designed for the Tunze 9002. A replacement skimmer would have to be quite small (hence the mention of the ER Nano above) or be a hang on skimmer that has an intake on the right and output on the left (the Deltec skimmers intake on the left and output on the right). If anyone has any specific recommendations that fit the above parameters please fire them at me.