Pros and Cons of going Bare bottom

[Vahanyos]

Off topic , with as many sand sifting critters we put in our tanks, is there still a high risk of your sandbed eventually crashing due to a lot of funk collected?? And does the more coarse special grade stuff also cause this major crash as some say?

 

[Alexreefer]

Off topic , with as many sand sifting critters we put in our tanks, is there still a high risk of your sandbed eventually crashing due to a lot of funk collected?? And does the more coarse special grade stuff also cause this major crash as some say?

This is what Im trying to prevent. I just did @brandon429 sand rinse and they sand is pristine but in the long run, I don't want my sand to release 4-5 years worth of junk into my tank.

 

[ca1ore]

I want my tanks to look as much like a slice of an actual wild reef as possible; which means a sand bed. Maintenance is overblown anyway. I don’t do anything to mine ..... well, other than curse when it all ends up as a dune in one end.

 

[hart24601]

I flat out will not have a sand bed. For me it's all about providing the corals, most of which for me are sps, with the best environment I can. Some can do it with sand, but it's too tricky for me.

Besides for reef crest coral most of them are from rock bottoms, not sand. Of course you can find exceptions but it's mosty rock or there is sand but it's dozens of feet below the acros. So to me sand does look nice but not natural, and make flow and nutrient management tricker.

 

[lbacha]

I want my tanks to look as much like a slice of an actual wild reef as possible; which means a sand bed. Maintenance is overblown anyway. I don’t do anything to mine ..... well, other than curse when it all ends up as a dune in one end.

A lot of the sps we keep are from the reef face which doesn’t have sand unless you go a long way down. I hear people sand = realistic but I’ve dove a lot of reefs and most of the time there isn’t sand anywhere near the coral on the reef. It is all dead coral (live rock) and live coral.

I think a coralline and coral encrusted bottom looks great as it highlites the coral in the tank

Len

 

[Alexreefer]

Here are a couple pictures from today.

 

[NY_Sea]

I started reefing many years ago and went with the deep sand bed method. 7 inches deep I believe in my first 80 gallon tank. I love the look of sand but of course after many years the sand bed became a nutrient sink trap. On my newest build I went bare bottom with hopes of covering it with purple coralline. Still working on that part. All in all the ease of maintenance wins. Corals never looked this good and all I have to do is siphon detritus out easily with every water change. I’ll most likely never go back to sand in display.. it’s just to easy bare bottom. I feel the tank is definitely a cleaner system.

I have considered trying a new approach which I haven’t seen done yet. That is to smear silicone or gel glue onto starboard and sprinkle pink sand on it. Sort of a faKe sandbed. Once dried the sand wouldn’t move and it would be easy to maintain just like a bare bottom tank. Maybe one day but for now it’s barebottom for the ease of maintenance and no worries of future issues ( old sand bed drama)

 

[ca1ore]

A lot of the sps we keep are from the reef face which doesn’t have sand unless you go a long way down. I hear people sand = realistic but I’ve dove a lot of reefs and most of the time there isn’t sand anywhere near the coral on the reef. It is all dead coral (live rock) and live coral.

I think a coralline and coral encrusted bottom looks great as it highlites the coral in the tank

Len

Depends. Dive walls then yes; dive bommies then no. Either way a slab of glass or plastic ain’t anywhere to be found. BTW, years ago I tried to replicate a reef wall in my tank and used base rock as the ‘substrate’. Worked out pretty well.

 

[Waynerock]

I have been battling an algae for quite some time. I am debating whether or not I should go bare bottom.

Those with experience please list the pros and cons of going bare bottom.

I just sucked most of the sand out because of blue green slime algae. I like it a lot more so far. It’s only been a few weeks and I have not seen any negatives yet. I kinda like the reflection under my corals

 

[Waynerock]

Oh and if you decide to vacuum out the sand do it in sections. You don’t want to shock anything. I took four water changes (a month) to get it out

 

[Millimylilly]

Hi there, I will give you some info from my bare bottom experience. This tank I am running currently is my first bare bottom tank. I did this because I wanted an SPS tank. I have a 60gallon cube with two MP40s running at 100% always. The SPS corals love it. The tank has been up for 4 months and I have not had any algae at all, the only nuisance was a mild outbreak of cyano. Not having sand has been the best move in reefing for me. The SPS corals love flow more than anything else.

 

[ScottR]

Pros:
Avoids the problem of certain corals being constantly irritated by sand getting on them
Can get more water flow near the bottom of the tank
Snails don't get stuck upside down

Cons:
It looks horrible

I gave up and took my sand out when fighting dinoflagellates. They went away within about a week and have not come back. I doubt I will ever add sand back but I may test out a coarser substrate (crushed coral or similar).

I have a BB. Rocks haven’t scratched the glass from what I can see. But even people with sand in their tanks have rock on the bottom.

 

[Scooter90254]

Pros
Just about everything.

Cons
Sand looks kind of cool when your first put it in.

 

[Justfebreezeit]

The only benefit of sand, In my opinion anyways, is keeping fish and inverts that need sand. Gobies, Wrasses, Conchs, nassarius snails etc...

My tank is barebottom and has one spot where all the detritus collects but it actually blends in pretty well. I do water changes every week anyways and siphon it out. If you wanted to skip water changes though you could put one end of the siphon into a filter sock in the sump and it would literally take 30 seconds to siphon it into the sock.

 

[Jon M.]

As for looking natural....where pray tell is the sand in this nature shot? Just sayin’....

 

[McPuff]

Pros - can have super high flow, which SPS will really like; and no sand storm

Cons - many wrasses need sand; cucmber, sand sifting stars, sand sifting gobies, conchs, etc., etc., etc. I really enjoy having those types of organisms. Sand looks nice. I like a more natural look... try for an ecosystem (as much as it can be). Sand is "hard to keep clean" (it's really not, just vacuum sections once in a while).

I agree with @ca1ore that the one thing that irritates me is how over several months, the sand ends up mostly on one half of the tank. Not a bid deal though.

 

[McFly]

Once you take matures, I find there is less room for sand. My current tank is at 1 year and you can see in my build thread, there would not be much space for it. Perhaps a few inches in the front.

I have GSP growing in the middle which is slowly spreading over the glass. I had a nice GSP 'carpet' in my last tank which covered most of the front BB. I agree with a lot of the opinions in this thread that BB can be an eye-sore, however once coralline takes over it is much more ascetically pleasing, then eventually corals take over most of the space.

My Gyres crank up in the afternoon and take care of any detritus settling that occurs.

 

[Jon Fishman]

Hi there, I will give you some info from my bare bottom experience. This tank I am running currently is my first bare bottom tank. I did this because I wanted an SPS tank. I have a 60gallon cube with two MP40s running at 100% always. The SPS corals love it. The tank has been up for 4 months and I have not had any algae at all, the only nuisance was a mild outbreak of cyano. Not having sand has been the best move in reefing for me. The SPS corals love flow more than anything else.

Oh wow..... I'm off to the "For Sale" side now, to buy some more powerheads! I want a lot of flow in my Bare-Bottom (ew?) but I wasn't sure if I had enough.

 

[Alexreefer]

Can anyone give me an idea of what im fighting? To me looks like diatoms

 

[Bryson.bobby]

I would say diatoms too. Any noticeable bubbles that would resemble Dino?