Bare bottom tanks
- Thread starter Wolf89
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reacclimating 2 the hobby
patience is... oh look an acro pack fs!
I, myself had a hard time getting away from sand. While I really like the look of it, I really enjoy having a ton of flow for my corals. I was just fallow for about 11 weeks and all I could see in my tank was thousands and thousands of pods, it was so crazy I had to make a post on it to make sure they were really pods.
I guess you will have pods coming out your ears if you have a carpet of corals on the bottom of the tank - Nice idea
Peace River
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On the outside of the glass (bottom or back) the issue is to use a paint that sticks to glass. I usually use Krylon Fusion (available at Lowe’s, Ace, and Walmart). Occasionally I have used the comparable Rustoleum product from Home Depot.
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Wolf89
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Doing some research and reading how invasive GSP can be. Really want a carpet of it, but dont want it on the rocks. Could I prop up the rocks with acrylic rods as I'm already doing that to stabilize the structure, that way the gsp cant climb on the rocks? Thoughts?
ScottR
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sfin52
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You can always trim it when it gets close to the rocks
I run bare bottom on my tank, which is fairly new, and I love the look! Can't wait to grow coraline! I also currently have a bare bottom fuge w/ approx. 25lbs of live rock and chaeto, but the rock prevents my chaeto from being able to tumble or move around at all. Thinking about removing the live rock and adding either sand or rubble. Any thoughts??
Possibly crush up the live rock that's in there actually, to keep what ever pods/life it has already.
Possibly crush up the live rock that's in there actually, to keep what ever pods/life it has already.
sfin52
So many pedestrians so little time
Yes it would for sand sleeping wrasse unless you put a container of sand in the tank
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Be careful. I have found that rubble can be a waste and detritus trap. Additionally, unless you put it in some type of removable basket it can be hard to clean out that trapped material.
Good point. Maybe I'll go bare bottom in the fuge completely and hope the chaeto creates enough of an environment for the pods. I just removed approx. half of the LR in the fuge, put an eggcrate dam across the overflow, and pulled the chato ball apart (approx. 2 softball size) and let it latch onto the eggcrate to create a thick mat across the overflow to act as a bio mechanical filter. Will see how that goes!
Hermie
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going to be honest... you have two conflicting goals IMO
just do the math, a bottom of the tank full of large grain substrate houses TONS of space for algae and microfauna to grow.
It's calculable, the area of your tank's bottom glass. Now, you can alternatively just add MORE live rock to your tank to compensate for that missing surface area.
That's definitely an option IMO, more rock to make up for the missing bottom "habitat"
w2inc
Active Member
Bare bottom will effect the diversity of the micro population of your tank. As you have seen from other members posts, you can grow plenty of different pods without gravel. I have both set ups. Both grow pods. The tank with sand had tons of fish in it. 1000 gph return pump, 2x mp 40 and 2x mp 10 on a 120 running 85%. Sediment collects in the last chamber of my sump.
It was about 2 years before I had PO4 spikes. I increased my Chaeto grow space and started supplementing No3. Levels were quickly controlled. There are certain amphipods that only live in the sand. My mandarines dont seem to care where they get their food but it seems like they like hunting on the rocks. I don't feel like you need sand for them. My BBT that kept mandarines had plenty of rock but produced enough food for two spotted that eventually started eating mysis.
I have pellets fed to the sand bottom tank on an auto feeder. My green female took a month or so before she figured out that they were food but she hangs out by the food drop now just after feed time and she is really fat. She was in the system for a year before I added the male. My male seems to just be figuring out that the pellets are food. He has been in the system for just over two months. He came in skinny and is just starting to fill out. They have mating rituals every night just after the lights dim. The 120 g has at least 50 fish in it that I feel heavily and everything that has a partner spawns on a regular basis. Monthly lunar cycle is an aggressive tank with the damsels. I harvest cardinal fry from the sump. 4 or more in there now about the size of a nickel. No filter socks.
My Chaeto grows tons of pods that get blown into the main system. My cardinals stay up all night eating them. I can shake the Chaeto in a bucket of water and pods drop to the bottom. Tons of surface area for them to live on. It is not what the Mandarines eat as a staple. I had some a few years ago that would take Mysis out of the water column, but have not seen that enough to call it normal. I know that some of them are benthic and probably find a home in the DT, but I don't count on them as my main population, just as a backup.
I like the look of sand. I am fine with the nutrient sink, or savings bank depending on how you like to see it. I feel that the reflected light from the tank bottom is a big deal. My BBT has white plexiglass on the bottom for that reason. Eventually it will be overgrown or I will add sand later who knows.
I feel like animals that like to dig won't be in heaven, but they will adjust to what they have. They managed from the ocean to the pet store. My Digging snails dont seem to miss a beat in the bare tank but I have never kept a digging wrasse in a bare tank.
Rubble on the bottom might be a good compromise to maximize pod breeding ground. Nassarius snails and mini brittle stars to pull out spilled food. Powerhead dusting as needed to get crap out.
If you are setting up just to breed it is a different world of tank design, or Mandarines will be the only livestock in your tank. If you are setting up to grow out to breed probably anything will be fine, so go with what looks good to you. In my Mandarine experience, it does not take long in a community tank for them to notice the excitement of food time and start to try out whatever is being dropped in the tank.
They are in my top 5 favorite fish! Good luck with them!
It was about 2 years before I had PO4 spikes. I increased my Chaeto grow space and started supplementing No3. Levels were quickly controlled. There are certain amphipods that only live in the sand. My mandarines dont seem to care where they get their food but it seems like they like hunting on the rocks. I don't feel like you need sand for them. My BBT that kept mandarines had plenty of rock but produced enough food for two spotted that eventually started eating mysis.
I have pellets fed to the sand bottom tank on an auto feeder. My green female took a month or so before she figured out that they were food but she hangs out by the food drop now just after feed time and she is really fat. She was in the system for a year before I added the male. My male seems to just be figuring out that the pellets are food. He has been in the system for just over two months. He came in skinny and is just starting to fill out. They have mating rituals every night just after the lights dim. The 120 g has at least 50 fish in it that I feel heavily and everything that has a partner spawns on a regular basis. Monthly lunar cycle is an aggressive tank with the damsels. I harvest cardinal fry from the sump. 4 or more in there now about the size of a nickel. No filter socks.
My Chaeto grows tons of pods that get blown into the main system. My cardinals stay up all night eating them. I can shake the Chaeto in a bucket of water and pods drop to the bottom. Tons of surface area for them to live on. It is not what the Mandarines eat as a staple. I had some a few years ago that would take Mysis out of the water column, but have not seen that enough to call it normal. I know that some of them are benthic and probably find a home in the DT, but I don't count on them as my main population, just as a backup.
I like the look of sand. I am fine with the nutrient sink, or savings bank depending on how you like to see it. I feel that the reflected light from the tank bottom is a big deal. My BBT has white plexiglass on the bottom for that reason. Eventually it will be overgrown or I will add sand later who knows.
I feel like animals that like to dig won't be in heaven, but they will adjust to what they have. They managed from the ocean to the pet store. My Digging snails dont seem to miss a beat in the bare tank but I have never kept a digging wrasse in a bare tank.
Rubble on the bottom might be a good compromise to maximize pod breeding ground. Nassarius snails and mini brittle stars to pull out spilled food. Powerhead dusting as needed to get crap out.
If you are setting up just to breed it is a different world of tank design, or Mandarines will be the only livestock in your tank. If you are setting up to grow out to breed probably anything will be fine, so go with what looks good to you. In my Mandarine experience, it does not take long in a community tank for them to notice the excitement of food time and start to try out whatever is being dropped in the tank.
They are in my top 5 favorite fish! Good luck with them!
w2inc
Active Member
I was just thinking that the fattest mandarine I have ever seen is at my LFS in the 40 gallon SPS tank that only has a frag rack in it. The sump is probably 60 gallons and holds at least 100 pounds of rock. The only tank mates are a dragon face pipefish and Yellow tang.
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