Sandbed

[mike007]

What do you think is best bare bottom sandbed, deep sandbed, or 1" or 2" sandbed?

 

[orthokardia]

Bare bottom for sure

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[kacrocorals581]

3" sand bed in all of my tank for the past 8 yr tried one bare bottom and had buffering problems in a 120 did a redo with 3" sand bed never had the problem agen

 

[Reefing Madness]

Gotta be the 1-2" Sand Bed. Won't have any trouble with gas building up, and to me looks better and more natural than a Bare Bottom system.

 

[Eckolancer]

Switched to bare bottom after running DSB for almost 15 years. After 2 tank crashes because of the DSB, as well as always having phosphates that I could never get rid of. Now phosphates are near 0 all the time growth is crazy and I have just about have the glass bottom covered with zoas and coralline algae.


Sent from inside the shark tank!

 

[Downbeach]

My current tank has been up since '05 with a DSB, the previous tank was up for 7 before I moved, and have never had a problem. To be successful using a DSB you really need to follow ALL the principals set forth in this article:

Ron Shimek's Website...Deep Sand Beds

 

[oceanparadise1]

I would never do a dsb due to the fact that it can cause issues if you dont know what your doing ( even if you do it can still cause issues) im a huge fan of 1-2 inch sand bed.

 

[AZDesertRat]

Depends on the situation and what you like personally. My present 100G is 9 years old with a 330lb. 5-6" Southdown DSB and I would not have it any other way. I have had bare bottom, crushed coral, shallow decorative sand and everything in between and will always go DSB in a larger system. In a small system you may not have the surface area of tank depth for a DSB and in that case I wouls stick with 1" or less and vacuum it. The DSB gets no maintenance or cleaning and is hard for some who like to mess with things a lot and disturb the anoxic and anerobic bacterias and kill the system. The key is good circulation and leave it alone.