Is your tank or future tank... Sand or Bare Bottom?

[tippin.turtle]

Bare bottom is the greatest gift I have ever given myself while reefing. It takes longer and much patience is required but the pay off is much greater than those with sand will ever know. My tank is ultra clean and my parameters are always in check. Those with sand will pay for their choice 1-2 years down the road. Take your poison at the beginning; sooner rather than later. Do it now and suffer; you'll reap the rewards as your reef tank matures. Never give in to those who say its not possible when times are at there darkest, as there will surely be dark days ahead. There will also come a light! Stay the course!

 

[Tony616]

I love my bare bottom because it's so much easier to clean and I could blast the power head however I want without stuff floating around. Sps loves random flows.

Coralline algae covered 90% of the bottom after 6 months.

 

[TerraFerma]

Bare bottom is great for your cleaning OCD or heavy flow. But sadly after the years I’ve noticed no downside to sand and no downside lacking whatever more flow you can crank out with no sand. That said do what looks and works best for you.

 

[krash7172]

Shallow sand bed here. Eye level wall mounted tank. I like the look of the sand with a diamond goby and the natural bio diversity.

 

[ca1ore]

I would never do a bare bottom tank ..... well, other than in a frag tank. I dislike the aesthetic and always keep various sand burying warsses. Those that ‘suggest’ a tank with sand somehow has a 1-2 year expiration are mistaken.

 

[Sharkbait19]

I’ll always put substrate in my tanks, unless it is for QT purposes or if the particular animal I’m keeping requires bare bottom. I just generally don’t like how bare bottom tanks look. They don’t seem natural IMO

 

[bmeily]

My last tank was sand and looked similar to the first photo in this thread after 3 years. I think it was only less than 2 in deep. But I never cleaned it once. So my next tank will have sand also but I will do better at cleaning it. Mostly I like the look, but does provide other benefits that been said already. It’s natural, brighter, beneficial bacteria and pods live there, faster cycle. I like animals that like sand and eat pods. I do like the look of bare bottoms and I see the appeal. I considered it strongly but I just don’t like it more than sand.

 

[Kfactor]

I love my bb tanks that’s all I have ran but in my new tank I’m building I’m going to try sand but only about a 1”

 

[tippin.turtle]

I would never do a bare bottom tank ..... well, other than in a frag tank. I dislike the aesthetic and always keep various sand burying warsses. Those that ‘suggest’ a tank with sand somehow has a 1-2 year expiration are mistaken.

Mistaken or have had the pleasure of trying to deal with the accumulation detritus and other muck that builds up in a sand bed over the long term. I'm sure there are many reefers who have also came to the same conclusion while often noted attempting to remove their sand at some point in the life span of their tank. It happens and to say it doesn't would also be mistaken. Please show us your 2 year old sand bed and your thriving reef if you don't mind. Novice reefers like myself are always looking for examples we can only aspire to emulate.

 

[ReefRxSWFL]

I tried to do one of my tanks bare bottom , and after about 6 months just hated the way it looked. It was doing fine from the beginning. I started from live rock that came out of the sump of my DT that was up and runing for about 9 years at the time, so had corals and fish from day 1. Just a week after adding the sand, it became way more stable, and looked so much better. Ill never do a bare bottom again.

In my frag system the tanks are bare bottom, because i have frag tiles right on the bottom. I skipped a skimmer, and put 3 inches of sand in that section of the sump and macroalgae in the other. Gives my bristle worms somewhere to live too

 

[tippin.turtle]

Mistaken as ca1ore has implied is accurate and fair to say.
Many tanks have run the duration of their life span with sand in them.
Sand can be kept in any tank for as long as you desire until the end of time if you so choose.
I do believe its fair to suggest that sand beds do accumulate detritus and other biological debris that can result in nutrient up ticks that can be difficult to manage. Some aquarist resort to removal of their sand bed entirely after many years of being in the tank in an attempt to resolve this issue.
My point is that by having a bare bottom tank from the onset takes this out of the equation altogether.
Which ever road you choose will be awesome either way!

 

[Calm Blue Ocean]

I like my sand dwellers too much to go without sand. Possibly if I didn't have them I'd consider going bb because I'll be honest, I hate maintaining sand.

 

[learjet3]

I have always had a DSB, but I am thinking of setting up a shallow frag tank and just using rubble to keep the sand of the frags

 

[Paul B]

I have had gravel since the hobby started and always will because many of the creatures I like live and spawn in tunnels they build. Bare bottom and sand won't work for me.

 

[ca1ore]

Mistaken or have had the pleasure of trying to deal with the accumulation detritus and other muck that builds up in a sand bed over the long term. I'm sure there are many reefers who have also came to the same conclusion while often noted attempting to remove their sand at some point in the life span of their tank. It happens and to say it doesn't would also be mistaken. Please show us your 2 year old sand bed and your thriving reef if you don't mind. Novice reefers like myself are always looking for examples we can only aspire to emulate.

Detritus isn’t the reef tank bugaboo that novices think. Mostly it’s mineralized mulm and can actually be a great medium for small burrowing animals. May be aesthetically unappealing of course. Go check out my build thread, there’s pictures of both my current tank at three years and the prior one at four. I’ve a serious case of upgradeitis, so the max I ever went for a particular tank was about 10 years. Did that twice, always with sand. Plenty of flow, and burrowing animals, and there’s no real expiration date. Maybe you just prefer the look of BB, and that’s cool

 

[Scorpius]

I hate sand. For me its nothing but a hassle that requires more maintenance that I can live without.

 

[ReefGeezer]

I've had bare bottom tanks in the past and thought them to be easy to keep clean. I have fine aragonite sand on the bottom of my current 90 because I like Wrasses & Gobies. That said, I've allowed the waver makers to make the front-center 1/3rd of the tank bare bottom. The sand is piled up in the other parts of the tank. I'm liking the look. I'm tempted to glue down some small rubble rocks in the bare area and put sort of encrusting coral or corals among them.