Giving up on bare bottom.

Ocean Lotion · Feb 10, 2019

I have been bare bottom for 6 months now and have had nitrates since them. Never had nitrates for the last 20 years of reef keeping. NA has been running around 50 the whole time despite weekly 20% h2o changes. Any input from bare bottom reefers would be appreciated. Lookin at putting sand back in.

vetteguy53081 · Feb 10, 2019

Ocean Lotion said:
I have been bare bottom for 6 months now and have had nitrates since them. Never had nitrates for the last 20 years of reef keeping. NA has been running around 50 the whole time despite weekly 20% h2o changes. Any input from bare bottom reefers would be appreciated. Lookin at putting sand back in.

I run about 3/4" bedding. A little is a must. Enough to cover bottom and show a lower surface coverage yet not have issues

Thor2j · Feb 10, 2019

I've run bare bottom for over 2 years. Nitrates around 5 or less .

150g

Thingsibuild · Feb 10, 2019

I cant keep n03 up. But I have alot of rock. Not sure if it makes a difference.

Ocean Lotion · Feb 11, 2019

Thingsibuild said:
I cant keep n03 up. But I have alot of rock. Not sure if it makes a difference.

Guess if I was running a fuge with chaeto I may not be having this issue.

loui · Feb 11, 2019

Tank looks fine to me. Are you having issues? I have never been a fan of hang on back filters for saltwater aquariums. Unless you are cleaning it every week it could be a source of excess nitrates. One thing you can try if you feel the need to get the nitrates down is to dose NOPOX from red sea or dose vodka. You really don't have a lot of rock, so you don't have a lot of filtration, maybe try putting marine pure bio spheres in the HOB filter that may help.

afartindolphin · Feb 11, 2019

Do you have any biomedia in the HOB filter? Don't see much live rock so I'm guessing sandbeds have served that purpose for you in the past.

Midrats · Feb 11, 2019

I like more rock when running bare bottom.

Ocean Lotion · Feb 11, 2019

Thanks for the input. I have more rock in there than in the pick now. I run matrix, carbon, por remover and floss which I keep clean. I took the skimmer off because it stopped pulling anything with that big hob filter. I love just syphon ing the detritus off the bottom w/o sand.

Retro Reefer · Feb 11, 2019

I would agree, lack of rock in your tank is not providing enough biological filtration and sand will help compensate.

DangerDave · Feb 11, 2019

Maybe some marine pur can help....

Coralmaniac21 · Feb 11, 2019

Btw ive only been in salt water for 4 months... fresh 20 years though.. i keep discus mainly.. but alot of people insist rodi and bare bottom for discus.

Bunch of hogwash... for one is ugly.. two bare bottom does nothing.. with gravel or sand i never vacuum ever.. i keep live plants and feed my discus boat loads some of you reefers would **** if you saw the amount of food discus require to grow big...

With salt water bare bottom would be even uglier imo... i dunno.. no way youd catch me doing it.

In my discus tank 135g i have a 3 or 4 inch sand bed.. in my reef maybe 1.2 an inch

As for lack of rock.. thats the reason like ppl suggest that tank is what 20 or 30 gallons ? My 27g hexagon for example had 50 to 60 lbs of rock in the tsnk.. i stacked it like a wall in the back and left a little sand bed in the front.. my upgraded 60g hexagon is the same... cept i have about 60-70 lbs of rock now.. and its stacked in the back like a wall and the front is all sand..

Amazon sells 40 lbs boxes of dead rock.. i bought two boxes

tautog83 · Feb 11, 2019

After a year of coral growth if the first thing you noticed was that I didnt have sand , I failed . You have nitrates because hob filter is poor choice and like what others have said there isnt enough rock . People go bare bottom usually with sps so they can blast the tank with flow , that on top of coralline growth you don't even notice .

Coralmaniac21 · Feb 11, 2019

I have a hob no sump and no protien skimmer... i have 33 corals... no issues... i use the hob for just water polishing.. it gets dirty every 2 or 3 days or so and i rinse the pad in the sink... All my bb are in my rock sand and my 3 liter denitrate home made canister.

You could make one of these canisters.. its easy.. i got a big ziptie container.. poked a hole in the top and bottom side.. put in a barbed fitting.. sealed them with silicone.. then filled it with denitrate from seachem... then sealed the top.

Hooked up a 150gph pump to it.. with all the denitrate it slowed it down to Bout 40gph.. which is how alow you want the flow to be.. and in 2 weeks my nitrates dropped from 40 and constant water changes to 20 then to 10 and then 0 and i never do water changes now.. i put a polishing pad on the inlet to keep particles out.. otherwise itll gunk up over time.. abd i mean a like 100 micron or lower pad.. if i feed more nitrates do go up but in a day or few hours drop back down.

Halal Hotdog · Feb 11, 2019

Why did you go to bare bottom in the first place? Usually I see people make the transition to bare bottom because nutrients were too high. Sand serves as a great surface area for beneficial bacteria to colonize and help breakdown ammonia, nitrite, nitrate, and to a lesser extend phosphates. I'm sure they break even more down, but these are the ones I am aware of. It also serves as a great place to organics to get trapped and rot.