Bare bottom tank vs sand bed

Sean Fitz · Feb 20, 2019

So no offense, but in my experience you can have all of those things - I have all of those things right now lol, but you cant have it all at the inception of tank setup. You have to let it get established, especially a sand bed, and especially for the SPS to be happy. I ran softies in the first two years, then added LPS, then a few years later added SPS. Usually whenever I decide to prune back stuff that has grown way too big I take the opportunity to mix it up a bit. I had a trumpet coral grow to the size of a volleyball and overtake some corals I was willing to let nature select, and when I decided to pull it out I had a whole corner of the tank to add acros to. Again all I do to maintain the sand is vacuum the top 1/2 inch every water change, sometimes every other. You have to pinch the hose to regulate the suction and not suck all the sand out, and you have to let the flow and sand find a balance so you are not constantly making dunes and smoothing them back out every few days.

Nick Barbier · Feb 20, 2019

Sean Fitz said:
Nick, whenever I have an issue I am attributing to a new additive I run a huge bag of carbon for a few days to suck it up, and do a big water change, as if I purposely ran chemiclean or something. That sucks though, I had a similar experience and thus hate additives. In the end, excess algae is from excess nutrients, and you can always export it - we are all just discussing how. I suppose with sand you get a little extra nutrients as it does trap detritus, and you have a higher bio-load from all the bristle worms and micro-fauna in the sand, but you can still export it. I agree with the DSB comment above, I dont see how it can be a filter if there is no water movement. Anyone with a DSB knows you do not want to go down beyond an inch. Every so often I scrap the front of the glass below the sand to make it clean looking for a party, and it bumps the alkalinity up very fast, like in-tank kalkwasser, and bumps of nitrate and phosphate. When I do do this I do a water change immediately after.

In general I have found that my small biopellet reactor and the occasional dose of vibrant reef, which is just a bacteria supplement, keeps it all perfect. Once every 18 months or so I may have a cyano outbreak and will use chemiclean. I attribute it to my T5s burning themselves to a different spectrum, but honestly it is probably just nutrient buildup over time and I would probably be fine doing a couple big water changes back to back, but chemiclean does work great for cyano (which is a bacteria not an algae). I have seen a lot of other cool gadgets popping up that I might try if my system wasnt already working well - dont fix what isnt broken. I especially like the idea of an algae scrubber, the concept makes a lot of sense - grow a **** load of algae on purpose out of sight to use up all the nutrients and starve the algae in the DT. Anyone had luck with one of those?

I agree Sean, I don't like putting additives in my tanks. That being said. the Reef Flux does seem to be getting rid of the GHA. But the cost of losing 10 coral frags is too high of a trade off. Reef Flux reccomends not doing a water change for at least three weeks. This weekend will be three weeks, so I will be doing a large 54 gallon water change. Just prior to that, I will be taking everything out and putting it in totes with powerheads. Then I am getting rid of the four year old sand bed.

Nick Barbier · Feb 21, 2019

Last night I made an interesting discovery, there are still copepods in my 125g mixed reef tank. I thought that the Reef Flux had killed them all along with my two cleaner shrimp. Now I'm on the fence about going bare bottom on the 125g. I may just syphon the top layer of the sand when I do the 54g water change this weekend and clean it up a bit. I really don't want to lose any of the pods.

427HISS · Feb 21, 2019

Nick Barbier said:
Last night I made an interesting discovery, there are still copepods in my 125g mixed reef tank. I thought that the Reef Flux had killed them all along with my two cleaner shrimp. Now I'm on the fence about going bare bottom on the 125g. I may just syphon the top layer of the sand when I do the 54g water change this weekend and clean it up a bit. I really don't want to lose any of the pods.

I'm with you Nick, I've always had sand as a DS and shallow, with fish and critters in all. If I ever set up a a SPS only tank, I would not have any sand, but we just can't have a bare bottom of a mixed tank. I don't care for the looks of bear bottom reefs. Just lightly....clean the top layer and have fish & the critters do what comes natural, clean & sift the sand. I love,.... Jawfish, Gobies etc, and crabs work with their symbiotic relationships, great to watch !

Nick Barbier · Feb 21, 2019

427HISS said:
I'm with you Nick, I've always had sand as a DS and shallow, with fish and critters in all. If I ever set up a a SPS only tank, I would not have any sand, but we just can't have a bare bottom of a mixed tank. I don't care for the looks of bear bottom reefs. Just lightly....clean the top layer and have fish & the critters do what comes natural, clean & sift the sand. I love,.... Jawfish, Gobies etc, and crabs work with their symbiotic relationships, great to watch !

I agree, I'm just not excited about having to go through all the work of breaking down my tank just to get the sand out. Don't get me wrong, I do like how SPS corals and coraline algea can incrust on the bottom and make it look nice and clean. However, having micro fauna and flora in my sand bed is more beneficial to the stability of the tank (in my opinion).