Ideas for a sand beach set up or build concepts

[Jason Scalise]

Can anyone suggest or direct me to some ideas or plans around setting up a tank that has a sand “beach” component to it?

I have looked and want to tinker with some concepts but surprised I have not found much.

Perhaps it’s because it’s a terrible idea?

 

[ISpeakForTheSeas]

Can anyone suggest or direct me to some ideas or plans around setting up a tank that has a sand “beach” component to it?

I have looked and want to tinker with some concepts but surprised I have not found much.

Perhaps it’s because it’s a terrible idea?

I've been playing around with this idea for a while now too. Tank size would play a major role in determining what all you can do with the setup, but you could make some decent beaches in smaller tanks.

-What are you hoping to do with the beach?

-Is there a specific specimen (plant or animal) that you're wanting to set the beach up for?

-Do you want waves hitting the shore and/or a swash zone?

-High tide and low tide?

-A part of the beach that never gets wet?

-A floating beach or a beach that's actually in the tank (i.e. do you want the beach to slope/ramp down into the water, or do you want the tank basically suspended above the bottom of the tank? - this second option is more difficult, but would have the benefit of taking up less tank space)?

-Plants on the beach?

-Do you intend to keep fish or other creatures that could get stranded on the beach? If so, how do you intend to keep them from doing so? (I know the fish should be able to just hop back into the water, but I've found it's generally a good idea with concepts that could be considered "over the top" to plan and prepare for the worst.)

 

[ElementReefer]

 

[ElementReefer]

Can anyone suggest or direct me to some ideas or plans around setting up a tank that has a sand “beach” component to it?

I have looked and want to tinker with some concepts but surprised I have not found much.

Perhaps it’s because it’s a terrible idea?

I know deep sand beds can trap gasses and host a very different community of bacteria.

However you could get creative with your idea of a beach like the YouTubers above.

 

[Jason Scalise]

I've been playing around with this idea for a while now too. Tank size would play a major role in determining what all you can do with the setup, but you could make some decent beaches in smaller tanks.

-What are you hoping to do with the beach?

-Is there a specific specimen (plant or animal) that you're wanting to set the beach up for?

-Do you want waves hitting the shore and/or a swash zone?

-High tide and low tide?

-A part of the beach that never gets wet?

-A floating beach or a beach that's actually in the tank (i.e. do you want the beach to slope/ramp down into the water, or do you want the tank basically suspended above the bottom of the tank? - this second option is more difficult, but would have the benefit of taking up less tank space)?

-Plants on the beach?

-Do you intend to keep fish or other creatures that could get stranded on the beach? If so, how do you intend to keep them from doing so? (I know the fish should be able to just hop back into the water, but I've found it's generally a good idea with concepts that could be considered "over the top" to plan and prepare for the worst.)

All the right questions and I don’t have answers yet as I am still thinking about the concepts and pitfalls. I certainly want to avoid what could easily be a putrid, smelly mess. But i like the idea of a beach in a long peninsula tank with small waves and some basic water livestock.

 

[Jason Scalise]

I know deep sand beds can trap gasses and host a very different community of bacteria.

However you could get creative with your idea of a beach like the YouTubers above.

Great. Thx

 

[Jason Scalise]

Looking for an actual beach with a low/hi tide or….consistent tide zone with small ripping “waves”. Mostly, I like idea of a transition zone.
Would likely keep the sand depth shallow with a built up “ramp” so as to help avoid a totally anaerobic zone in the sand.
Again, not sure because I have not seen much in way of examples. Perhaps that is a sign…..

 

[ISpeakForTheSeas]

Looking for an actual beach with a low/hi tide or….consistent tide zone with small ripping “waves”. Mostly, I like idea of a transition zone.
Would likely keep the sand depth shallow with a built up “ramp” so as to help avoid a totally anaerobic zone in the sand.
Again, not sure because I have not seen much in way of examples. Perhaps that is a sign…..

Alright, so high and low tide (the thread this quote is from - which you can get to by clicking my username in the quote box - is about tide pool tank designs):

Discussed something similar in a different thread recently (though that one was more about imitating tides on the beach), and the just of it was imitating the rising and lowering of the water with two pumps (one to pump water in from a different tank/sump/reservoir/etc. and one to pump it back out when the time comes) and setting the water level just below the "tide pool" area then having a wavemaker on a timer that sends a wave over the top of the tide pool area every so often. You could pretty easily set it all on a schedule to try and imitate the natural high tide/low tide.

How well this would work in practice for a tide pool tank I couldn't say (as one of the earlier comments points out, this tide pool setup would be much easier in word than in practice), but it would interesting to see if it would work.

For a swash zone or tide pool:

...have a wavemaker on a timer that sends a wave over the top of the sand every so often...

I've heard wave/surge boxes can give a proper wave, or there are a few other DIY solutions that you could use to make a wave too (though adapting some of these to aquariums may be a bit difficult). If you want the waves to break (i.e. if you want them white cap in the tank), that's a lot harder to setup properly and would take a lot of playing around to get just right, but it's also possible and could give you a nice swash zone (the area where the water from breaking waves that is above the actual waterline of the tide runs over the beach). Anyway, here's a DIY wave box:

DIY Wave Box

Hi Reefers. Its been few weeks i was Searching for some details on a DIY Wave Box , but couldnt find simple detailed making procedure specially on youtube or r2r. Therefore I decided to Try to make one myself with Hit and Trial and It Worked Wonderfully. Here are some details 1. Using a Used...

www.reef2reef.com

Mudskipper aquariums are a great place to start looking for a "traditional" sand/beach slope, but I'm not sure how well they would hold up against any sort of actual wave:

Photo #1 - Mudskipper/fiddler Crab Tank. (brackish)

view 1 full verison photos of 30 gallons planted tank - photo #1 - Mudskipper/Fiddler Crab tank. (Brackish) - Fish Kept - Mudskippers - Corals/Plants - Mangroves - 30g Mangrove tank for my mudskippers and crabs.

www.ratemyfishtank.com

A floating beach would be a lot more difficult and may or may not be a good idea (I don't know anyone who has set one up at this point, so it'd probably run into a lot of unforeseen difficulties, but it could potentially work and may hold up better against waves), but you'd basically just have the sand in a fine mesh container (to allow for water passage but not sand passage) closer to the top of the water (with a short upward point at the end of the container to keep the sand in at the side of the beach closer to the water - i.e. it would have a long dip/lip to keep the sand in the beach and out of the rest of the tank). To have different tidal zones, you could even layer this floating beach like in the image below (the dark gray is above the waterline, the light brown is dry beach, the dark brown is the swash zone at high tide, each of the blues in the "beach" area represent different levels of area submerged/exposed by the tide as it raises and lowers - from top to bottom, the high intertidal, mid intertidal, and low intertidal zones - I don't remember what the light gray and the lavender colors represent):

And here's how someone did a splash zone tank (similar to swash zone, but with the spray from breaking waves rather than the running water from them, if that makes sense):

I made a "splash zone" tank by placing a baffle stretching from front to back but at a 45 degree angle. Then stacked small reef ruble rock up the top side of the baffle for the water to run over. Stocked it with shore crabs, mussels, hermit crabs, anemones, and an assortment of snails (all locally caught). It was pretty cool to watch the critters scramble around when the food would wash over. Didn't keep it for long because it was NOISY, not to mention the massive salt creep!

Just a quick generalized sketch of what it was like.

 

[Jason Scalise]

Great stuff and thanks for all of the links to ideas. I will spend some time going through them. Always looking for something a bit different and i like the diy options. Thanks again.

 

[Jason Scalise]

After watching the video….That mudskipper has a mental problem or a cocaine problem. Nutty. Love it.

 

[fish farmer]

Looking for an actual beach with a low/hi tide or….consistent tide zone with small ripping “waves”. Mostly, I like idea of a transition zone.
Would likely keep the sand depth shallow with a built up “ramp” so as to help avoid a totally anaerobic zone in the sand.
Again, not sure because I have not seen much in way of examples. Perhaps that is a sign…..

Dynamic Aquaria, a book by Walter Adey back in the last century touches on ecosystem models. It had examples of a Chesapeake Bay tidal tank. It wasn't a "how to" book, but may give you some ideas. I have the original hardcover, but they have a second edition.

 

[ISpeakForTheSeas]

Saw this thread today and figured it may give some more ideas for the waves:

Build Thread - Plastic Beach - Traveling Water Wave Machine

Plastic Beach - Traveling Water Wave Machine I've been pondering this idea for a while and I've finally put together a design for experimentation. My goal is a machine to create traveling waves in aquarium like wind-driven waves in a natural body of water. These differ from the kind of water...

www.reef2reef.com

 

[Jason Scalise]

Yeah. Saw that too and went through it. Thanks for also forwarding.