The advantages and disadvantages of a bare bottom tank. Would you go BB?

[brandon429]

@brandon p

does any of that you said line up with this

Official Sand Rinse and Tank Transfer thread

If you are reading this thread to cure a tank invasion from a link I sent you, we do not need to identify your type of invasion here we do not need you to test anything at anytime regarding nitrate, phosphate etc Above all, we do not need to see a microscope slide picture of your invasion at...

www.reef2reef.com

I do it to my own tank and we collect the outcomes when others use our sand removal method.


as you can see clearly, the cause of old tank syndrome is found 99% in the sandbed and the way to stop tank aging and eutrophication is to clean that rock diaper if animals and lucky balance aren’t already cleaning it


hopefully that dedicated work shows that nothing in a sandbed is required to have a successful reef tank, though they may be required to house certain fish correctly. As stated, we can instantly remove or swap out any sandbed from any reef on this board and it won’t harm a thing, even though BRS once said it would. The takeaway would be don’t seek out brs information on sandbeds, since they aren’t able to remove and swap them without loss. We’d use as a template for action the link above, where we can remove any sandbed on this whole board instantly in one pass without loss.


we can even change out both your rocks and your sand lol and get no recycle / a few are in there.

 

[uhgster1]

My tank is purposely half sand and half bare.

The bare side has the higher flow for my SPS. I get the benefits of both. Can’t remember the last time I vacuumed my sand bed.

 

[Timfish]

Reef ecosystems are incredibly complex and we are still a long way from understanding them. There is a lot of complex biology in reef ecossytems including in the sand. Besides the detritus that is essential to the carbonate cycles there's microorganisms and endoliths in the sand that are very likely essential to a healthy ecosystem.

 

[brandon429]

Tim but we are not having any downsides in ripping them out of tanks, it all seems very expendable? Plus that opening pic from Ref, a bare bottom looking every bit as good as Paul’s fifty year old sandbed?

 

[Midrats]

I've had lots of tanks since Eighties. When I'm setting one up and tell my wife it's going to be a bare bottom SPS tank she cries, so for her I keep a layer of coarse sand. If it's OK with Peter Wilkens it's OK with me.

 

[Karen00]

I have sand and it gets blown away from one edge and piles up on the other side Kinda looks like a beach setting. I love sand and might get a pair of leopard wrasses one day.

That's interesting. Do you have a powerhead that's causing that?

 

[Karen00]

As to the "it doesn't look natural" complaint...

A large expanse of sand isn't natural in the middle of a reef crest. It just isn't.

stony coral reef - Google Search

Wall to wall coral on a rock base is actually the natural state there.

One could argue though that's not bare bottom. It's a rock bottom. ;-) I would totally do this but would cover the bottom in rock so no glass showed. The pic you posted is stunning. What I don't like seeing is the glass bottom (for my tanks). I like sand because I love the sand sifting gobies but I would certainly do another tank like the pic you posted.

 

[schooncw]

If anyone here wants to make their sandbed tank instantly bare bottom and with no recycling, holla, we can do that job live time here. Our reef tanks dont need a single thing found in sandbeds…they’re merely extra bioload our tanks tolerate. Specifically, you do not need any of the bacteria from a reef sandbed as a critical filtration link it’s fully uncritical and expendable in all systems.

if you want to change your whole sandbed out for a new one we can do that too, all in one pass.


that being said I keep a very deep sandbed bc I like the looks. Owing to the rule above I just deep clean or replace it occasionally to keep it tidy.

My 120 mixed reef is BB but to say that there is “ not a single thing” in a sand bed that a reef tank needs is not accurate. Quite a bit of life happens in a sand bed and where’s it may not be 100% necessary in some systems, it will certainly be of benefit to others.

 

[schooncw]

I have, unfortunately I currently have a Sand Sifting Goby and a melanurus wrasse, so until they are gone, I have to stay with sand.

I have wrasses and a sleeper goby and I am BB-except for one very small section off to one side. The rest of the “bottom” is only bare of sand and is covered with mushrooms and other softies.

 

[schooncw]

never seen a reef with a glass bottom on any reef I dove.
not a reef tank without it.
a glass box with corals.
ok.... fire away.

Never seen a reef enclosed in glass when I dove either

 

[Roli's Reef Ranch]

Hello!
Using bare bottom for the first time over an year now.
Hard to come back to sand… very easy to maintain and best advantage is in terms of circulation.

However, I have to be honest… I still miss the sand… it is not the best visually.

No coralline on the glass? You must be scraping continuously, but it looks great for bb!

 

[schooncw]

I have a bare coral bottom. Just about every inch of tank bottom is used for Zoas and other corals. You can’t even tell there is no sand.

I take the same approach with my 120. Bare Bottom applies to sand for me only

 

[PBar]

No coralline on the glass? You must be scraping continuously, but it looks great for bb!

Hello, thanks!
Please check my rocks in the photo… I don’t have a single coralline in the whole tank, including rocks

 

[brandon429]

@schooncw

Official Sand Rinse and Tank Transfer thread

If you are reading this thread to cure a tank invasion from a link I sent you, we do not need to identify your type of invasion here we do not need you to test anything at anytime regarding nitrate, phosphate etc Above all, we do not need to see a microscope slide picture of your invasion at...

www.reef2reef.com

all sandbeds from any reef tank can be instantly removed without harm, shown above. All corals and filter systems move on fine we show. If special fish need sand, have some. If you like a deep sandbed like I do, have one.

we make that work thread with weekly new jobs to show two details: 1. Surgical precision is needed to deal with aging sandbeds as they can kill your whole reef, there’s a downside and 2. Those with successful sandbeds make blanket rules about them that we can easily break in pattern, we need a way to deal with the waste that sandbeds store and I cannot find a single alternate thread on the internet using reef tanks as live examples for changing the rules.

any reef tank is tolerating and filtering waste generated from the sandbed, it’s a bioload zone just like fish, sandbeds command a massive amount of oxygen away from fish and other animals, but we can roll with that insult—if you’re careful on how you access the rotting waste 99% of sandbeds contain.

(sandbeds don’t contain rotting waste you’re making that up)

for those responses I always ask for the writer to start a sandbed transfer thread as we did above, run it a mere ten pages, report back. They never do, only our thread grows. They still hold firm though on claims, even having seen fifty pages of opposing proof.

if you live in a power outage prone zone, the last reef tank zone you want present during a challenge is a sandbed of any type. Sandbeds are a tolerable diaper zone unfortunately but I agree busy fish can prevent that blockage, or stick stirring etc.

 

[Roli's Reef Ranch]

I

Hello, thanks!
Please check my rocks in the photo… I don’t have a single coralline in the whole tank, including rocks

noticed that too and was wondering if it was a new setup with grown colonies?!? How have you managed to avoid coralline? I didn’t think that was possible. Looks great

 

[PBar]

I

noticed that too and was wondering if it was a new setup with grown colonies?!? How have you managed to avoid coralline? I didn’t think that was possible. Looks great

Tank is a bit more than a year since the first coral.
It is pure dry rock and all acroporas were cut-off from the base before entering into the tank.
As such, (almost) no chance to introduce pests and coralline.
I only ran the risk in the beginning with 4 snails 4 hermits … but I meticulously selected those without anything in the shell… still, that was a risk.

Up to know, all clean… and I have to admit that my alkalinity consumption is way lower than all my past tanks, although I have way more sps now.

 

[Roli's Reef Ranch]

I suspect that you may have cut the bases off. I’ve always wondered how much all the coralline is consuming relative to my sps/lps. Good to know that most of what I’m adding in alk/cal is just feeding coralline algae, although I do like the look on rock. I started a new tank, an upgrade from 38 to 100 gals with the original stock mostly and the coralline has taken off in the last month month as well as alk consumption.

 

[UK softy bloke]

There are generally two ways to maintain a reef tank as far as the substrates are concerned. You can either use some type of sand or you can use no sand and go bare bottom. Which is actually no substrate at all! We talked about sand the other day so today let's talk about bare bottom and the advantages and disadvantages of it.

1. What are the advantages of having a bare bottom reef tank?

2. What are the disadvantages of having a bare bottom reef tank?

3. How many of you run your tank bare bottom and how many of you used to but switched back to sand and why?

bare bottom tank image via @irwin_fletch

I used to have quite a tall reef scape but on stripping down the tank 7 year ago decided to go for a lower scape, once the liverock went back in there wasn't a lot of room for sand so I didn't bother. Now the base is covered in coraline algae.

 

[PBar]

I suspect that you may have cut the bases off. I’ve always wondered how much all the coralline is consuming relative to my sps/lps. Good to know that most of what I’m adding in alk/cal is just feeding coralline algae, although I do like the look on rock. I started a new tank, an upgrade from 38 to 100 gals with the original stock mostly and the coralline has taken off in the last month month as well as alk consumption.

The effect of the coralline in the alk consumptions is definitely not negligible. I’m seen a lot of difference.

In terms of the rock, I prefer them covered with coralline as well… but I hope that all acros will cover it in year from now.

Good luck in the upgrade! Hope to see pictures soon!

 

[RobMcC]

I have four tanks set up right now. Two with bare bottom, two with sand bed. I don't think it makes much difference to long-term success. The reason I put sand in some tanks is because I keep some fish that prefer sand in those aquaria. Unfortunately for my most recent tank I ordered the wrong grain size and it gets blown about...

Folks should just go with what looks good to them (and accounting for the needs of their livestock). I don't have much of a preference in look, to me maybe bare bottom looks slightly better, especially once coralline algae and encrusting corals cover it, but I also like the look of sand (I don't get the natural/unnatural arguments - none of what we do looks like a real south east asian / australian reef).