Bare bottom verus sand.

Pistol Peet · Oct 9, 2020

Wich decision did you make and why. Is it better to have sand or a bare bottom. I'm sure this maybe unique to each individual tank. However has been weighing on my mind . Would love to hear the community's thoughts and input. What 1 u choose and why. Let's see some of your best tank shots showing how different it makes a tank look with and without. I know all you refers love an opportunity to show off what you got. I chose sand an now wondering if it was the right way to go so hard to keep clean all the time.

reefer024 · Oct 9, 2020

Always sand for me. My pistol shrimp and orange spotted goby prefer it if course. Get some nassarius snails they do wonders and stirring up the sand. And the pistol shrimp it always doing remodeling to his tunnels.

SPS2020 · Oct 9, 2020

BB for the last 20 or so years. Harder to stabilize in the beginning, but easier maintenance in the long run. Sand looks better, but blows around with high flow. IMO, it comes down to your tank goals (SPS, LPS, softies, FOWLER, etc.) and what you prefer.

smacbride · Oct 9, 2020

Aragonite or crushed coral acts as a natural pH buffer and looks more natural IMO.

NeonRabbit221B · Oct 9, 2020

Mine will be a aragonite tile bottom. Still haven't added coral/fish but it is cycled. From a distance you can't tell its not sand and will likely be easier to maintain. I do love my sand in my evo and BB does limit the fish/inverts you can have.

Pistol Peet · Oct 9, 2020

reefer024 said:
Always sand for me. My pistol shrimp and orange spotted goby prefer it if course. Get some nassarius snails they do wonders and stirring up the sand. And the pistol shrimp it always doing remodeling to his tunnels.

Definitely I have snails but 160 gallon tank to so it takes tons of them to do a good enough job thanks for the reply in the info tank looks great

Pistol Peet · Oct 9, 2020

SPS2020 said:
BB for the last 20 or so years. Harder to stabilize in the beginning, but easier maintenance in the long run. Sand looks better, but blows around with high flow. IMO, it comes down to your tank goals (SPS, LPS, softies, FOWLER, etc.) and what you prefer.

I prefer the look of bare bottom myself just a little bit cleaner looking but I agree a lot harder to stabilize my biggest pet peeve end when the sand blows around on top of my corals on the bottom starts to kill parts of them can't always catch it right away thanks for your reply in your input greatly appreciated

Pistol Peet · Oct 9, 2020

NeonRabbit221B said:
Mine will be a aragonite tile bottom. Still haven't added coral/fish but it is cycled. From a distance you can't tell its not sand and will likely be easier to maintain. I do love my sand in my evo and BB does limit the fish/inverts you can have.

Sounds like a good idea let's see a tank shot if you can would love to check that out.

Alaeriel · Oct 9, 2020

I love the look of sand and went with ultra-fine sugar sand. I'd probably go with slightly larger grain next time, but I think it looks more natural than bare-bottom, which is what I prefer personally. That being said, any quarantine tanks work well bare-bottom for all the added benefits therein, but for the display I like the look of the mini ocean.

PicassoClown04 · Oct 9, 2020

I've always gone with a bare bottom for two big reasons. Cleanliness and aesthetic.

whenever/wherever detritus accumulates, it's easy for me to just suck it up during a water change without disrupting the whole balance of my sand and creating a giant sandpit. I can also see the detritus better so I know that there isn't like a giant mound of it somewhere just sitting around being disgusting. I also like that I can better see and destroy pests. Bristle/fireworms really bother me so getting them out when I can is always a plus. I don't lift up rocks to hunt them or anything, just when I see one squirming its way across the bottom I simply pick it up.

Aesthetically speaking, I love the look of the natural ocean, I am an avid diver and appreciate the look of nature. But while I dive, I tend to gravitate more towards the rock-dense parts of the reef where there isn't much sand as opposed to the look most aquarists go for which is actually a complete mini reef or the edge where the reef meets the sand. The middle of the reef is really where you see most of the cool critters while diving, so I prefer to recreate that look in my aquarium. To do this while maintaining good viewing angles through the glass, I create a very holey and archy aquascape with hard rocks and rubble. Then I fill in with coral. I place zoas directly on the glass and spread a couple of pebbles around to give the zoa garden some depth while the zoas spread. I feel like from the top-down perspective, it is very similar to how a real reef looks (albeit with way more colorful corals and usually a higher density) because it appears that the zoas have fully encrusted rocks while the arching aquascape has been covered with coral. From a side view through the glass, it is more like you're just hovering over the reef looking at the very top portion of the reef where it is just the endless blue ocean behind.

Just my point of view on it, easier to clean and I like the way it looks. Ive also seen some really nice tanks with a lot of sand in them so its all up to the aquarist how they want their tank to look/ what they want it to represent.

ScubaFish802 · Oct 9, 2020

definitely sand in my opinion

NeonRabbit221B · Oct 9, 2020

Pistol Peet said:
Sounds like a good idea let's see a tank shot if you can would love to check that out.

Build Thread - NeonRabbits 40 Breeder Negative Space Build

After 6 months battling aiptasia and a poorly designed DIY foam back AIO I have decided to do a teardown and rebuild the tank in a more classic direction. My foamwall had several gaps that caused a massive buildup of detritus, took up a ton of room and had some very tight chambers for my...

www.reef2reef.com

Will be updating later this weekend. Tiles were shifting so putting a dab of superglue on the joints as needed

ThePurple12 · Oct 9, 2020

You're not supposed to keep it clean. That defeats part of the purpose, which is beneficial organisms in the sand.

Paleozoic_reefer · Oct 9, 2020

I went bb when i upgraded to my 90 gal. I love the fact I can run the power heads as high as I like without sand blowing around. Also, over time the bottom gets encrusted with coralline, or corals, and looks really nice!

Acros · Oct 9, 2020

I am resetting my tank this weekend and going bare bottom. I want to add more flow and do not want the sand to go everywhere.

Pistol Peet · Oct 9, 2020

Paleozoic_reefer said:
I went bb when i upgraded to my 90 gal. I love the fact I can run the power heads as high as I like without sand blowing around. Also, over time the bottom gets encrusted with coralline, or corals, and looks really nice!

Looks very good

PicassoClown04 · Oct 9, 2020

Paleozoic_reefer said:
I went bb when i upgraded to my 90 gal. I love the fact I can run the power heads as high as I like without sand blowing around. Also, over time the bottom gets encrusted with coralline, or corals, and looks really nice!

That tube anemone... im drooling! How's the care/lifespan with them? Theyre not really fish eaters are they?

brandon429 · Oct 9, 2020

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

that is about 200 sandbeds to peruse. we rip cleaned every single one.

if that last part is offensive then evaluate them based on the before pics, some were nice some were invaded it does range based on variables and keepers can influence direction if they'll balance ideally

if sandbeds were consistently easy, though, after installation nobody would use that thread to move homes upgrade/downgrade or just make changes, without killing the system.

bare bottom setups don't vary into system-killing setups, only sandbeds do that.

its no slight to good sandbeds, clearly a good sandbed would not kill things.

in the very least, the thread presents proof that if you want to be able to handle hundreds of sandbeds presenting for different reasons they each need to be cleaned that way the crash detritus is factored out. not every bed has that bad loading, but by making deep cleaning the goto means they all can be handled safely