Frag tank vs Barebottom reef. Am i mssing something?

xxkenny90xx · Oct 29, 2020

Maximitsurugi said:
Ok, ill put a real situation and you tell me how you think it might go based on the info posted so far. I have a reef that has aiptaisia all over. Im going to break every acro i have and transfer them to a new dry rock scape, where i have maybe 3-4lbs of Matrix media cycled for over a year in the sump.

The rock has been soaked in lanthanum chloride dosed water and will have zero phosphate. My intention is to go barebottom in this setup. "See the scape in my build thread."

Can i move my acros without issue? Its gonna be a "frag" tank afterall but many persons say no, you need maturity of a year to keep acros etc.

Frankly, apart from the MB7 ill dose to the reef, i dont think the Matrix will do anymore than help me move fish. What do you think?

Ah the real question, good

Sorry totally ignoring your question for the moment but aren't you worried you'll get aiptasia spores from the cycled media your adding?

Maximitsurugi · Oct 29, 2020

DC Reefer said:
Is your “cycled” matrix from the same tank as the aptasia? If so you may be transferring it to the new tank.
also I think the 4 month cycle BRS is referring too is for dry rock. I believe in their videos they say if using live rock it will speed the process up. I did their process on a rebuild and used all live rock and dosed a few different brands of bacteria. Never got any algae, coralline came on strong very quickly. I did fish in two weeks and waited 2 months for corals. This was a bare bottom tank. I also used three of the bio bricks in the sump.

I did a build a number of years ago and was doing zeovit. I started with all dry rock, turned on the lights and had an algae forest in no time. So bad just started over.

Well im trying to be careful with the whole aiptaisa thing and theres nothing i can see just yet but im keeping at it. I have filter floss between the media and the return. Hopefully that will keep the anything that comes off the media out. I am cycling some addituonal media. If its reqdy in time ill use that but time is the issue.

The rock is all dry rock that was built into a scape. Nothing live except matrix.