bare bottom "bottom" ideas...

[Metcho]

I bought a sheet of black abs plastic with one side textured and cut it 1/8 smaller then inside dimensions. Really like it cause I’m not to sure about ricks straight in the glass. If you have safe there’s that for cushion not just glass

 

[Chessmanmark]

Let it grow, let it grow ...

 

[BOWHUNTER4250]

I have A DD300 and i have a piece of 1/2" black marine board down and im running bare bottom , i have a SPS dominant tank with a ton of flow , coraline grows like thick sheets on the bottom , looks good at first but now i hate it but if i had sand i know it would be a dust storm

 

[Ef4life]

Travertine

I made my aio pico with travertine for the wall and substrate. Bonus is it’s porous natural stone so it is a good home for beneficial bacteria. It’s beige so it looks like sand when new and clean, but eventually turns purple with coralline.

Use small 2-4” pieces for the substrate and you can have easy to swap frag tiles.

 

[charlestonreefer]

I like starboard just because the rock doesn’t slide on it as easily and glue holds better for frags.

it does take much to break up the plane of the bottom, glue some smaller rocks and put zoas on them, just give it 3d, not just corals that encrust. Sps work well too ask the vertical elements off the bottom. Once you break up the solid vertical element I think BB looks far better than sand. My old 120 with zoa rocks and few other items. Tore tank down and don’t have good shots of the bottom but it’s enough to get the idea.

Hart this is EXACTLY the look I’d love to achieve. Well done!

 

[Coralsdaily]

So I'm in the process of setting up a pretty decent size (450 gallon display) room divider tank in a new house and I think I've decided to go bare bottom. Everything I'm reading leads me to believe BB once established and running will allow for easier maintenance and that's pretty important to us. Here's the debate though... we think sand looks much nicer and makes the tank appear more "natural" especially to folks who don't know anything about the hobby. Has anyone experimented with placing black starboard and then gluing down a bunch of gravel and smaller pebbles or anything to give it a more natural look? I'd think giving some zoos some landscape on the bottom to grow on could look pretty cool in time.

A recent thread another hobbyist posted using starboard on a barebottom tank and he has regrets. Basically what it is you'll start having critters like snails, fan worms, algae, sponges growing on it, and then later on detritus trapped, and there is absolutely no way to get rid of them without tearing down the tank. So just something to consider. If I have to go with some sort of installation, I'd recommend doing it in "tiles" so you can remove some of them for maintenance or cleaning without the need to tearing down the whole thing.

 

[Kfactor]

I had lots of the coraline algae until I added a urchin now I do t have any left lol he cleaned my tank clean lol it was looking good too

 

[newfly]

I'm interested in white starboard for my next build as well mainly for the look. The tank I ordered (waterbox) i think have leveling foam preinstalled. I am not sure removing the foam to paint the bottom white will void the warranty. So, starboard is an alternative I'm looking at.

Anyone here have >4-5yrs old setup with Starboard? Except for Caroline algae eventually take over ( unless you have Kfactor's urchin!), how easy/difficult to keep the starboard clean? The main purpose of starboard is i like white bottom that is not sand.

Anyone regret having starboard? I like the idea someone posted here. Put in the starboard and if down the road i change my mind, i can always add sand on top.