Debating bare bottom back to sand

[TheLadyCrash]

As the title says, I'm debating on going back to a sand substrate in my 45g JBJ AIO, but I just can't decided. I have been running bare bottom for 6 months or so after having a bout of flukes and a case of ich. I know both of these could have been prevented with better quarantine.

Here's a list of my pros and cons for adding sand back in so far:
Pros

• Increasing area for beneficial bacteria and pods to live
• Wider selection of species can be kept
• Hopefully the sand will help anchor my smaller corals down so they don't get moved around so much by snails, urchin, etc.
• I can never seem to keep the bottom of the tank clean - there is always detritus build-up

Cons

• Being able to run my gyre without worrying about sand getting blown around
• Not having to deal when the sand gets "ugly"
• When I do a water change, it easy enough to vacuum out the detritus but I'm trying to decrease how often I do them
• Personal experience of nasty creatures not thriving in the tank as they don't have a nice home to snuggle into

My tank is a reef tank with a combo of softies, LPS, and SPS. So who wants to help give me some advice or play devil's advocate?

 

[nautical_nathaniel]

Having a sand bed versus having a bare bottom is going to have an equal amount of tradeoffs in my opinion, it's more of a preference really. I would ask myself which look I liked more and which would be the best for my critters. I have to have a sand bed for my melanurus wrasse, since that's where he sleeps. I also like it for the biological filtration aspects. It can have issues with cleanliness, but a good group of sand sifting critters can help out with that.

 

[tdileo]

I don't think I could do bare bottom except in QT or a frag tank. If your sand is getting blown too much you could switch over to crushed coral/aragonite.

 

[TheLadyCrash]

I don't think I could do bare bottom except in QT or a frag tank. If your sand is getting blown too much you could switch over to crushed coral/aragonite.

Why couldn't you? Aesthetic reasons or your fish? Some other reason? Truly just curious.

 

[tdileo]

Why couldn't you? Aesthetic reasons or your fish? Some other reason? Truly just curious.

Just meant that because I find it so ugly haha. I'm one of those people that doesn't like freshwater tanks with fake decorations, I love natural looks. Even if it's very simplistic. Of course gobies are a wonderful addition to every tank and some need sand

 

[TheLadyCrash]

I'm one of those people that doesn't like freshwater tanks with fake decorations, I love natural looks.

That's similar to another thing I forgot to post under my pro list. There was an article posted not too long ago about how we should strive to make our tanks as close to our fishes natural habitat vs making them try to adapt to how we think our tanks should be. It made a lot of sense to me and is part of what started this mental debate.

 

[keddre]

Honestly I say keep trying until you find your favorite, one that you just love. I tried shallow, bare bottom, dirt, gravel and sand before I found my love for deep sand beds. Now I can't see myself ever going back

 

[Grey Guy]

I like sand because it makes my setup look more like a real reef. If you can't keep a BB clean, I think you would have a problem with sand. Regular vacuuming is a must unless you go with a full on Deep Sand Bed, which presents a whole lot of other issues. I always thought it might be nice to allow the bare bottom to be covered with clove or star polyps. Anything encrusted on the entire bottom would help the look, and could still be vacuumed easily.

 

[FishOfHex]

I love bare bottom but checkout this pros/cons video

 

[PSLReefer]

You can debate pros/cons all day. Ultimately it comes down to personal preference.

 

[Grey Guy]

I love bare bottom but checkout this pros/cons video

Great video. Thanks for sharing.

 

[3mm3]

Personally I would never go bare bottom.

Edit: Unless fish quarantine or frag display at event.

 

[andrewkw]

I think about adding sand to my tank all the time. It's been bare bottom almost a year now. I've run deep deep sand beds, medium, super shallow, sugar, course sized and remote dsb. Bare bottom looks the worst but functions the best for me. That being said I probably will one day have a sand bed again just not anytime soon. Things are going well in my tank so most likely I will leave it as is unless I get an overwhelming urge to add sand.

What really keeps me from adding sand is the amount of detritus I remove every week. One recent thing I found interesting was watching a video on a talk Jason Fox did. He mentions the corals he collects are never near the sand which I thought was really interesting.

Finally in some ways I think you can add bio diversity to your tank running it bare bottom. When you pull rocks out of the sand that have been buried for years there's not much on the bottom. Look at this brief video of the bottom of my tank : There's all kinds of creatures with the small pockets between the glass and rock effectively becoming an in tank refugium.

 

[TheLadyCrash]

I love bare bottom but checkout this pros/cons video

Absolutely love your videos (subscriber) but somehow missed this one. Definitely game me some food for thought. How often do you siphon the detritus from the bottom of your tank?

 

[TheLadyCrash]

@andrewkw - so do you siphon the tank only once per week? I know some people do it every day with a turkey baster but I tend to be more of a once a week person too.

For biodiversity I have rubble rock and MarinePure ceramic bioballs running in the back chambers (I don't have a sump ATM).

 

[FishOfHex]

Absolutely love your videos (subscriber) but somehow missed this one. Definitely game me some food for thought. How often do you siphon the detritus from the bottom of your tank?

Thank you, If i have enough time i do it every bi weekly water chance. Yea i had this video in the wrong playlist makes me wonder how many video are like that haha

 

[andrewkw]

@andrewkw - so do you siphon the tank only once per week? I know some people do it every day with a turkey baster but I tend to be more of a once a week person too.

For biodiversity I have rubble rock and MarinePure ceramic bioballs running in the back chambers (I don't have a sump ATM).

Yes. Once a week I do a 10g water change and get it then. The way I have the flow setup in my tank most of the detritus settles in one corner so I just move the one rock that's there and get it then.

I should point out I am not removing all detritus from my tank. I have a traditional small refugium in my sump but it's just a marine pure block an detritus. I'll clean that once a year, and in the overflows there is a layer too that's cleaned maybe twice a year. I don't think it's a good idea to remove 100% but when your tank is producing a lot there is no way it's all going to get eaten up.

 

[Oceanwave45]

Also as far as the ulgy sand you can use the Hawaii black sand. That's what I use... also you can just make a very swallow sand bed too!

 

[TheLadyCrash]

Also as far as the ulgy sand you can use the Hawaii black sand. That's what I use... also you can just make a very swallow sand bed too!

I'm trying out Hawaiian black in a 15g that I'm currently working on rebooting because I'm very curious how detritus, algae, etc looks with it.

 

[Broadfield]

You can also use this simple method to keep your sand spotless at all times.