Deep sand bed: A myth?

I stumbled upon this interesting article that presents the results of experimentations with deep sand bed, which go directly against what is believed by many in the hobby.

After reading it, my question is: what to think then of the claims of products like Matrix and Siporax, that they are able to remove nitrates because they have "anaerobic areas"?

http://https://aquariumscience.org/i...naerobic-myth/

In summary, the article says that in the aquarium, nitrates are absorbed by:
1) Plants and algae
2) Fungi, water molds and bacteria in the substrate, called “assimilatory dentrification", in which no nitrogen is released.

For discussion....

It was a passing trend about 20 years ago in saltwater reefing - where high nitrates are much more devastating to stony corals. Unfortunately, after a year or two they often crashed

The site didn’t come up for me. But I’ve never bought into the whole nitrate thing. For denitrify bacteria to grow it needs a light free and oxygen free area. So a deep sand bed may work. Best is a canister filter with a sunsun prefilter on it. Only clean the prefilter. The reason matrix and biohome say there good at denitrifying is because their porous. Both of these media’s are good but the denitrifying part in my opinion are just to boost sales. On another site a few hobbiest did this and it didn’t work for long. When nitrates are bad for your tank is when they are very high (do to no water changes) and people do massive water changes. The big change in water quality kill your fish. If done slowly by smaller water changes the fish will survive.
Api test kits didn’t even have a nitrate test 20yrs ago. Nobody tested for nitrates. What a great test it is too. Nobody can tell what color red it is and everyone thinks the worst. If your tap water doesn’t have nitrates and you change your water weekly nitrates are a moot point :). Don’t buy into the nitrate hype :).

Let's see if this link works https://aquariumscience.org/index.ph...naerobic-myth/
Pat

Thank you Pat that was a great read. Even in the filter it didn’t work. What I’d like to know is how we’re the fish being kept in the 160ppm to 240ppm tanks for a year. Were they Showing signs of illness from being in there.

You hear these horror stories of aquarists excavating thru 4" sand beds and hitting a gas pocket that bubbles up killing all living things as it ascends. Meh..i don't know if i buy it. How can there be a pocket in sand? It's sand! There isn't any space between particles. If you have the typical 2" bed, the fish movement, foraging, current, messing around with decorations, regular vacuuming etc all move the sand around enough. Any personal anecdotes about substrate gas explosions?