Bare bottom tank vs sand bed

[mattzang]

i love me some halichoeres wrasses so i can't see myself ever setting up a tank without sand

maybe a nano, but in my planned nano i want me a pair of yellowhead jawfish so no go on that too

 

[pepijn]

Its all about balance. I dont do water changes. In my tank nitrates are always rising. I use carbon source to lower my nitrates, so i need tot push my phosphates steady above 0.06, by dosing, to let those break-down-bacterias thrive, if the balance is improper it wont work. After bringing it down find yourself a Daily maintenance dose for Both. I do suck my sandbed twice a year or after completing above after cycling, because the excess dead bacteria bodies who die-off after above cycle may clog the sand. 2x a year i dose new bacterias to keep the proper strains thriving.

 

[Millennium reefer]

What test kit are you using?
Is the test kit expired?
How old is the tank?
Do you skim?
Sandbeds offer a Hugh amount of surface area for bacteria to de nitrofy your water.
Some test kits are just not easy to use.
Sanjay says he's never cleaned the sandbed in his tank.
Bad test kit or method, first thought thou.

 

[Cory]

bb tanks make more sense to me for the fact that ive had unhealthy fish with organically loaded sand beds. I cant imagine organically loaded sand is fueling good bugs. Its like living in a out house toilet. And when cyano grows on the sand you cant get rid of it unless you remove those organics.

Sand beds work in removing nitrate as long as they are deep enough or the sand grains are small enough.

Its a big confusion and nobody knows for sure whats better.

 

[basement reefer]

I have doubts of the effectiveness of a sand bed for filtering, the flow just isn't there.

Think about it, why is it so dangerous to disturb a sand bed if it's this amazing filter? Is all that bad stuff just from today's feeding and the sand just hasn't got to it yet? I don't think so.

The fact that Sanjay doesn't clean his bed does not mean it is beneficial. A lot of people probably don't clean sand well enough on tanks that big, it would be hard work and you could never do a thorough job with all that livestock in there.

Sand is fine for certain biotopes but it is no longer mandatory for a "reef" tank. IMO

 

[ScottR]

I have doubts of the effectiveness of a sand bed for filtering, the flow just isn't there.

Think about it, why is it so dangerous to disturb a sand bed if it's this amazing filter? Is all that bad stuff just from today's feeding and the sand just hasn't got to it yet? I don't think so.

The fact that Sanjay doesn't clean his bed does not mean it is beneficial. A lot of people probably don't clean sand well enough on tanks that big, it would be hard work and you could never do a thorough job with all that livestock in there.

Sand is fine for certain biotopes but it is no longer mandatory for a "reef" tank. IMO

There are great CUC that work great to keep sand clean. Some even die because there’s just not enough food for them. If sand was so bad, everyone would have bb tanks. I don’t think one is better than the other but you just need to know how to keep your tank in shape.

 

[Jonreefer]

I have always had sand but this 40B i went with a black ABS bottom.
I will say I am already enjoying the bare bottom over sand. Seeing all the crud in the tank build up into 1 pile in a corner that takes me 2sec to suck out and not all that gunk in the sand. When I moved from my 35cube to my 40b and I had very little sand in that tank to begin with but the amount of crud in that sand after taking it down and thats with me stirring it a few times a week over a 9month time it was up. Id never go back to sand.

 

[basement reefer]

Mosts aquariums don't last a year which is why I stopped following the general consensus. People buy sand because they think they need it. It's literally the 3rd or 4th thing they buy. Tank-stand-light-sand.

A CUC doesn't clean up anything, they are more of a bioload that give the appearance of cleaning due to grazing the rock, but this is only visual and temporary. A CUC does not export nutrient in and of itself. It's a shell game. When they pop and or die, the nutrients are released again. You would have to constantly replace your mature CUC with a physically smaller one to export and nutrient. When you look at it that way, a few extra water changes here and there seems easier.
It's not that they are worthless, just you still have to manage and export the nutrients some how, when you do there is less there to support a CUC.

While better can be subjective depending on what your goals are and the livestock you wish to keep, a BB tank is going to be easier to maintain good water quality long term. Lower maintenance.

 

[ReefEngr]

I have both bare bottom and sand bed tanks. I personally like the look of a reef tank with sand. My sand bed about 2" deep. My wrasses enjoyed the sand too. My nassarius vibex snails and wrasses help stir up the sand bed. I have no major algae issues beside a little bit of hair algae at the corner overflow, none on rocks. That's expected though as I use tap water, and I'm ok with that. If you have major algae issues, you might want to look into bioload, feeding amount, lighting intensity and photoperiod too.

 

[Nick Barbier]

I agree with the additive issue Sean. I added Reef Flux (per the recommended dosage) to combat a hair algea outbreak, to both my 125g and 75g mixed reef tanks. I dose Oceans Blend 2 part and Red Sea NO3/PO4 Reducer daily. Within the first 24 hours of dosing the Reef Flux, I started losing corals, starting with my SPS (acros and montis). I even lost two of my Euphyllia (a hammer and frogspawn). I attribute the coral loss to contaminates released by the die off of the GHA. However, per the Reef Flux instructions, it is recommended not to do a water change for 3-4 weeks after administering the Reef Flux. And then do at least a 30% water change after that.
I believe that the GHA outbreak is due to elevated nitrates (above 16 ppm) in my nearly 5 year old 3" sand bed and less frequent water changes (once every 2 mon ths).
Even after watching a Jason Fox video on BB tanks, I'm still not totally convinced that BB is the way to go. I really don't want to break down my tanks and put everything in totes (including most of the water long enough to remove all the sand) if I can help it.

 

[Nick Barbier]

Both my tanks were setup with Carribsea live sand. I also use Special Blend live bacteria every two weeks to maintain the bacteria level.

 

[Nick Barbier]

Thanks for the input ReefEngr, I have (4) AI Hydra 26 on the 125g and Current USA Dual Orbit Pros on the 75g. Both tanks run blue and UV starting at 12pm slowly ramping up to 100% by 2pm and the white lights comming on at 4pm and ramping up to 35% by 8pm. The whie lights ramp down and are off by 10pm and the blues/uv ramp down and are off by 11pm.
I'm thinking about decreasing both the photoperiod and intensity on all my lights. I just don't want to decrease the lights to the point where my SPS start suffing from a lack of light. That being said, I know that some SPS (especially acros, live in deeper water, up tp 100 feet).

 

[dutch27]

It helps tons. Look at it like this. How many with baredottom tanks do you see having problems with green hair phosphate or nitrate?

BB I had ended up with massive algae and nutrient problems. My theory is it was the quarried rock I used, as it didn't happen until I upsized my tank and added quarried rock (that had been cycled), and it all grew on that rock first.

BB vs sand is preference in appearance and cleaning. BB is easy to clean, you can see the piles of detritus. Sand looks nice and a bit more natural. Neither is better than the other.

 

[hart24601]

I think sand looks nice, but when it comes right down to it I keep my reef for the livestock in it, not just for what I think looks better and over the decades of having sand and not having sand - the corals in BB systems always did better. Now of course if you really clean the sand from time to time or have the system really well balanced one might not have issues.

Basically you can do either way, however IMO with the shift in the years to more SPS focuses reef BB makes sense if for no other reason being the flow.

But it's not like sand or no sand will make a break a tank, just keep up on maintenance if needed and don't get blinders on.

I doubt personally I will ever put sand in just because it seems more for me than the livestock I want to keep. This has happened several times locally, maybe a half dozen or more. People post or talk with me in our club about how they have a great tank but in the past year or two they have been having increasing issues. I ask them to siphon out a bucket of sand and look at the water. Every single time the water almost makes you want to vomit it's so rancid. Since it's happened so often it seems unlikely to be pure coincidence. It also happens that these folk also covered their sand in LPS and frags over time as well so they, or any larger animal, couldn't clean the sand.

To me anymore sand doesn't look natural at all with SPS, while there are exceptions the large reef crests are rock bottom, not sand.

 

[Nick Barbier]

I only have 3 fish (a yellow tang, a blue tang and a damsel) and a couple of small blue legged hermit crabs in the 125g. In the 75g, there is a coral beauty, two small blue damsels and a small tomato clown, one cleaner shrimp and about 8 tiny blue legged hermit crabs, and one turbo snail. So the bioload on both tanks is small to medium in my opinion. I am also running Eshopps refugiums with sand beds and live rock rubble on both tanks. My nitrates are 16ppm in the 125g and 20ppm in the 75g. PO4 is .03ppm in the 125g and .01ppm in the 75g. And yet I had a GHA breakout in both tanks, the reason for dosing the Reef Flux. I lost 10 corals, three cleaner shrimp and two turbo snails in the process. I supposed the less frequent water changes probally have alot to do with the GHA outbreak.
From what I've read, SPS, especially acros seem to do better in BB tanks. On the reef, they only appear to grow on the rocks and not in the sand.

 

[marlinmon]

I have doubts of the effectiveness of a sand bed for filtering, the flow just isn't there.

Think about it, why is it so dangerous to disturb a sand bed if it's this amazing filter? Is all that bad stuff just from today's feeding and the sand just hasn't got to it yet? I don't think so.

The fact that Sanjay doesn't clean his bed does not mean it is beneficial. A lot of people probably don't clean sand well enough on tanks that big, it would be hard work and you could never do a thorough job with all that livestock in there.

Sand is fine for certain biotopes but it is no longer mandatory for a "reef" tank. IMO

I put a sand bed in my coral QT after it had been online for sometime (it had significant nitrates at the time). Eventually sucked nitrates to undetectable. This was the only change in that tank. I can't keep them up naturally. I have the same issue in my DT, but that's been deep sand bed from the start so I really have no baseline nitrate value as I did with the coral QT.

 

[FishyDP]

I am starting up a new 180g system and am struggling making a decision regarding bb or sand myself. When I was cleaning out my 8 month old 125g system, I was horrified of the filth that came out of the 1 1/2" sandbed. I really do like the looks of sand, as it makes the tank pop and light reflects off it nicely. I personally am leaning towards a 1/2" sandbed, with the hopes that the shallow bed will not collect as much detritus. I do not think that removing your sandbed is a cure all for elevated nutrients, as others have stated. It will help but more than likely other adjustments to nutrient export need to be made. Keeping the right amount of flow to help nutrients make it to your skimmer I have found is a big help. I also carbon dose, and plan on using marinpure blocks in my sump, and a refugium.

 

[Sean Fitz]

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?

 

[Leo58]

A sandbed is good or bad depending on how you set up and maintain. A good sandbed should be teeming with life, any food trapped in the sand will be consumed quickly and never given the chance to rot. I have hundreds of brittle stars on the sand and rocks, bristle and spaghetti worms, amphipods, mysis shrimp and thousands of pods. Do you think I actually vacuum the sand and remove these critters? My sand is completely carefree. My NO3 is less than 0.2ppm yet my corals and macros all doing great. The tank is producing nitrate and phosphate but those get consumed instantly creating a low reading. Most of you only care about the bacteria in the sand and forget about the microflora and microfauna living there. A reeftank isn't an aquarium to keep fish and corals but a mini ecosystem teeming with life. You can have success with a reeftank caring only about water chemistry but for me water biology is just as important. A well maintained sandbed can greatly contribute to the stability and balance of your reef.

 

[Punchanello]

When I started my tank a year ago I thought I could have it all. Mixed reef, sand bed......butterflies lol.

The best thing I did was remove the sand bed.

For shallower sandbeds which are there for aesthetic reasons (that was my reason) you want to siphon and stir regularly so it looks nice but this also makes it more susceptible to sand storms. I've noticed that deeper sandbeds that are also there for biological reasons and don't get stirred up seem to cake a little and don't get blown around as much.