Bare bottom or not to bare bottom??

[Cory]

Having sand is like letting your kids eat candy. It taste good, looks good, but it really isnt good.

 

[Reefahholic]

 

[CMO]

To those you that have coral fully grown on your bare bottom tanks, how difficult is it to keep encrusting corals, zoanthids etc. from growing on the sides and front of the glass?

 

[alten78]

To those you that have coral fully grown on your bare bottom tanks, how difficult is it to keep encrusting corals, zoanthids etc. from growing on the sides and front of the glass?

I placed frag discs or square porcelain next to colonies that I didn't want getting too far or close enough to glass, as soon as it encrusted enough I'd pop it off and sell it.

 

[Reef Jedi]

After reading every single reply in this thread. I am still so tossed up between sand or BB. I’ve kept a reef tank since 2003 and I’ve always used sand. BB looks very appealing but I’m not sure if I’d like the appearance. I’m still so confused

 

[burnetb1]

I recently ditched my sand bed and couldn't be happier. I have a 3d printer so I have been printing thin hexagons to cover my glass bottom. The idea is I can grow softies on the bottom and swap out the hexagons for fragging or arrangements ect.

 

[Ocean Lotion]

Co

I recently ditched my sand bed and couldn't be happier. I have a 3d printer so I have been printing thin hexagons to cover my glass bottom. The idea is I can grow softies on the bottom and swap out the hexagons for fragging or arrangements ect.

Cool idea. I was going to do the same with the travertine tiles I have but my tank does not have a large enough foot print.

 

[Ocean Lotion]

Still have low nuetrients ( candy cane coral barely holding on and gets better if I spot feed it). But high nitrates (50) 3 weeks after putting sand on the bottom. I definately do not over feed.

 

[shnapper20]

I had bare bottom with lots of rock for yrs, the detritus would build up in the rocks and give me issues with nitrates and phosphate. So in an attempt to combat this I removed 1/2 the rock and introduced a 1" sand bed hoping the sand would trap the detritus and I could vac it up before it found its way into the rock work. This did work to an extent however even with regular vacuuming the sand bed still held a lot detritus. Another pitfall I found was for 10yrs bare bottom no scratches on the glass, 2yrs sand bed I have some serious scratches, I went from a hammer head cleaner to a tunze cleaner which helped prevent future scratches yet try as i might I still managed to. I also noted the glass was harder to clean near the base of the tank with the sand bed, In fact I may have damaged the seam trying, for a fortnight ago it let go. Im now looking at a new tank. I believe I will go with another bare bottom tank with less rock.

 

[shnapper20]

I placed frag discs or square porcelain next to colonies that I didn't want getting too far or close enough to glass, as soon as it encrusted enough I'd pop it off and sell it.

what a great idea

 

[MrSkumfrog]

I Had a DSA 105g several years ago with a sandbed that went bad. It was at the rear of the tank and areas surrounding the base that my gravel vac couldn’t reach. I was dosing a lot of GFO and still had algae issues and high nutrients. The sandbed had solidified.

On the next build, I went BB. It was crazy on how low my nutrients were. There is something sweet about intensifying your flow.

 

[Aerixx]

Has anyone tried putting some larger sand siliconed to starboard? Seems like the best of both worlds

 

[BillyD69]

I switched to bare bottom after 17 years of doing sand and personally find it much easier although definitely not as aesthetically pleasing as sand. Atleast until the coralline covered the bottom now it looks pretty good. i think sand beds were fine and had less problems with cyano/algae when it was back in the day of live sand with live rock and all the critters that came along with it that would eat the detritus and keep the sand bed otherwise healthy. Of course along with that came all the hitchhikers You didn’t want. I started having algae problems when I switched to dry rock and sand. Even though I gravel vac’d regularly I was amazed at how much crap the sand held. I think with bare bottom you need high flow to keep as much detritus in suspension as you can so it’s removed by the mechanical filtration/skimmer. With weekly cleaning of the filter. Even then the amount of detritus on the rocks is substantial so i blow Them off weekly with a power head before a water change. I also keep my Vortech near the bottom and any heavy stuff that sinks forms a nice little pile that’s easily removed during water change. Overall I think maintaining bare bottom is easier but if neglected will be just as bad as a neglected tank with sand in the long run.

 

[acropora4u]

I thought about it to, when I switched from my undrilled tank to my drilled tank. I ended up doing sand and I'm glad I did. My biggest concern was sand provides a little stability for the rock work. On bare bottom I felt that the rocks had more moveability to rock and tilt. I went with the Fiji pink sand mixed with Fiji white sand, and it looks really good

Sounds like a great combo !

 

[Scorpius]

Bare bottom for the long term health of a reef tank is a no brainer. I'll never run sand again.

 

[roninmagik1]

I think my sandbed might be an issue, it's solidified, and rather than try to stir it up and do a huge water change to siphon off all that gunk, i think i'm going to just suck it all out, and try a barebottom. I'M EXCITED!~ =)

#1 reason: Hoping it'll make the sps frags i just got happier. Everything else in my tank is doing great, but i just can't get these sps frags to extend polyps or look happy.
#2 reason: For my particular situation, i don't have any cleanup crew that would go through and sift the sand, just a few crabs and a cleaner shrimp presently. I've bought snails before, but they would always die off. For contrast, i had a 20 gallon below, sharing the same water system, and down there, they did great, any i would put upstairs would die, i've never figured it out.

Things i'm a bit worried about: it's been mentioned that the rockwork is less stable with no sand, so i will have to make sure the foundation pieces of my rockwork are all solid, or redo the scape.

 

[Roger D]

I'm setting up a 40b to get what coral I have in a 180 full of aptasia and going bare bottom but the sump will have sand and a clean up crew. Then the chore of breaking down and super clean the 180.

 

[brandon429]

sending out work requests in message for jobs involving instant sandbed removals for anyone here who wants to be bare bottom... it does not have to come out in sections/increments


there are new ways to effect the change you want without recycling and we want more jobs for our sand work threads, if a tough job is out there we want it.

 

[sensaidavid]

Things to consider when going barebottom.
1. Established biology on on/in aquascape and sump. A must have for bare bottom tanks.
2. Buffer. No sand no buffer even with loads of live rock, must dose either kalk or 2 part to establish stablity, I use all for reef and kalk.
3. Flow from back of tank consider 2-3 current makers on the lower back of tank to keep detritus suspended and two high flow on sides to get the detritus that builds on live rock.
4. Live rock with lots of nucs and crannies for fish to sleep in at night.
5. Pods pods and more pods.
6. Consider a good quality protein skimmer and refugium in sump (for stability). Your fish will be more active in high flow and will consume more food protein skimmer almost a must to remove organics so phosphates dont stay high unless you have appropriate sized fuge.
7. If you dont have fuge or skimmer may need to dose lanthanum chloride to keep phosphates down.
8. High flow in main tank high flow in fuge, consider tumbling chaeto or pom pom to keep from gas build up in fuge.
9. Stick with a salt mix and stay consistent, consistency is key in a barebottom tank.
10. Patience due to buffer much harder to keep stable then a sandy bottom tank, get good test kits especially for alk calc and phos. Automation tools and monitoring will help keep tank more stable in my opinion, like ato, dosers ph and sality probes, reef controllers etc etc.
11. Keep an eye on temperature less it bleach all your corals.
12. Good quality lights that cover/blanket all the regions of your tank no sand = no light diffusion reflection.
Barebottoms are not a slice of the ocean but an evolving technique to keep animals alive in a controlled environment, they are a good place to test new technologies and gear as they evolve in the industry.

 

[SPS2020]

I've been bare bottom since the 90's and love how there's no detritus build up (provided you have proper flow).