Sand bed …or no sand bed.

[peterhos]

Hi All

Red Sea are shipping me a replacement tank under warranty.

For 3 years I have had 1-3 inches of sand.

If I get rid of the sand bed would my nitrates and phosphates drop?

The tank has 5 fish, 2 shrimps, 2 Kenya tree corals and some SPS frags. I am after SPS more than softies.

Thanks for your thoughts.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Hard to say what impact it would have on nutrients up or down, if any, and may depend on the sand, but I think sand looks natural. Bare bottom tanks look like LFS holding tanks.

 

[peterhos]

Hard to say what impact it would have on nutrients up or down, if any, and may depend on the sand, but I think sand looks natural. Bare bottom tanks look like LFS holding tanks.

Ah. Thank you. I was thinking that sand under rocks might trap a lot more waste etc

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Ah. Thank you. I was thinking that sand under rocks might trap a lot more waste etc

It might, but there are other factors, such as possible denitrification down in sand, phosphate binding (or release) from new sand, and what would otherwise happen to that waste, etc.

 

[dedragon]

idk if u shud put sand in the new tank because of the worms you had that lived in sand and started eating thru the silicone seems. just something to think about

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

idk if u shud put sand in the new tank because of the worms you had that lived in sand and started eating thru the silicone seems. just something to think about

He had worms that ate silicone in this tank? I've seen this reported, but I'm skeptical.

 

[Jasonak]

He had worms that ate silicone in this tank? I've seen this reported, but I'm skeptical.

I believe he is teasing because its a Red Sea tank.

 

[dedragon]

He had worms that ate silicone in this tank? I've seen this reported, but I'm skeptical.

same. probably the seam started to go and they wormed their way in, but they are getting a replacement red sea tank. maybe a good idea to start no sand and add sand after about 6 months.
did they replace it with a g3 or another g2?

 

[Jasonak]

Ive always had sand in all my tanks, I like the look.
I wouldnt use all your old sand maybe half of it to seed the new sand.
I tried a bare bottom tank and I had issues with it.

 

[dedragon]

much harder on the stability of the tank the other way around

 

[exnisstech]

Two of my bare bottom tanks. Not sure of the effect the sand has on my N and P levels which are very different in each tank.
The first tank runs N 35-40 P 0.35-0.9+ The second tank runs N 3-6 and P 0.02-0.04

I like the look of sand but I fail to keep it looking nice and the second tank has too much flow for sand.

same. probably the seam started to go and they wormed their way in, but they are getting a replacement red sea tank. maybe a good idea to start no sand and add sand after about 6 months.
did they replace it with a g3 or another g2?

Not worms but algae will destroy whatever type of silicon that RS uses. I have this going on in my reefer 300 G2 shown above. I've had a lot of brands of tanks through the years with seams damaged from scraping etc but have never had silicone destroyed by algae.

 

[X-37B]

If you like sand I would replace it all with new as opposed to rinsing forever, but that's just me.
My main system is BB and the others have sand.
BB systems take time to grow in.
Once grown in they can be quite stunning. It takes patience to fill in a BB system, especially larger ones.

Sand or no sand either will grow all coral just as well.

There are several ways to control po4 and no3 and they should be looked into if you want to lower them.
I have 7 brains on the bottom of my 150.
This is 1 years growth on the bottom.

 

[X-37B]

much harder on the stability of the tank the other way around

What's hadrer on stability?

 

[dedragon]

What's hadrer on stability?

removing existing sand rather than adding a sand to a bare bottom

 

[X-37B]

If your referring to system stabilty there is no difference with or without sand in any system I have ran.

 

[Jasonak]

What's hadrer on stability?

I think he is saying bare bottom is harder for stability and id agree, it was a nightmare for me. I've had tanks for 20 years and man did I struggle to stabilize my bare bottom. I fought dinos and cyano. I tried doing the bottled bacteria system on top of trying bare bottom for the first time and it just didnt work for me. I know ton of people do it and there tanks look amazing it was just a uphill battle for me. I wouldn't say id never try it again but I would not use the botted bacteria cycle system. I think that's what got me off on the wrong foot as apposed to just grabbing some rock out of my display and using that to get things rolling.

 

[X-37B]

I think he is saying bare bottom is harder for stability and id agree, it was a nightmare for me. I've had tanks for 20 years and man did I struggle to stabilize my bare bottom. I fought dinos and cyano. I tried doing the bottled bacteria system on top of trying bare bottom for the first time and it just didnt work for me. I know ton of people do it and there tanks look amazing it was just a uphill battle for me. I wouldn't say id never try it again but I would not use the botted bacteria cycle system. I think that's what got me off on the wrong foot as apposed to just grabbing some rock out of my display and using that to get things rolling.

Did you start with live rock?
All my BB systems have been started with live rock. Same with sand.
My new 112 will also be BB.
I only use bottled bacteria when I first dumped 150lbs of fresh live rock into my 150.
It helps with the ammonia from day one.

 

[Jasonak]

Did you start with live rock?
All my BB systems have been started with live rock. Same with sand.
My new 112 will also be BB.
I only use bottled bacteria when I first dumped 150lbs of fresh live rock into my 150.
It helps with the ammonia from day one.

No I started with nothing. At the time was having issues with my display and wanted a 100 percent completely sperate BIO setup from the display. The plane was to frag everything from the main and have a back up system with copies of everything. So did some research on here and found out that the new thing to do was do a bottled bacteria and add some bottled ammonia etc. Anyways it did not work out for me :P Long story even a bit longer my backup tank is now piped into my main display lol.

 

[peterhos]

same. probably the seam started to go and they wormed their way in, but they are getting a replacement red sea tank. maybe a good idea to start no sand and add sand after about 6 months.
did they replace it with a g3 or another g2?

They replaced a G2 with a G2. At least the plumbing should be the same.

 

[surf165]

This is my exact life right now with my almost 3 year old tank. I was contemplating bare or sand with the replacement 300 G2 sitting in the garage, ticked I have to kind of start over. It’s been great until it wasn’t. Thank you for starting this conversation.