Which do you prefer, bare bottom, sand bed, or deep sand bed?

[skinz78]

Which do you prefer, bare bottom, sand bed, or deep sand bed?

Please explain why.

 

[florida reef]

I currently have a shallow sand bed, but I think my next tank is going to be BB. I like the thought of lower nutrients, no sand covering frags, less detritus, etc. It may lose the natural look, but hopefully the beautiful corals will make up for it!

 

[mcarroll]

Certainly there's room for lots of opinions on this.

To me a mature, bare bottom tank looks more naturalistic...might even be more natural in some ways, as not every reef in nature is in close proximity with a sand bed. Certainly many of our janitor snails are not from a sandy zone as they are completely inept on the medium.

There's also no chance of a bare bottom "turning on you" as a sand bed can and there's no way you can clean a sand bed up as fast or as completely as a bare bottom can be cleaned.

There's also definitely nothing wrong with a sand bed in a well-maintained system. Just that in the long term, that can be a big caveat. "Stuff happens." Ya know?

-Matt

 

[REEFKEEPER10]

This is a loaded question. I like a shallow sandbed in the display but have a eight inch sandbed in my fuge. Lol

 

[ritter6788]

Shallow sand in the display BB fuge for me. I like the looks of some sand and I vacuum it when I do water changes. BB fuge makes it easy to vacuum out all detritus.

 

[REEFKEEPER10]

That does make since. I vaccum the display sandbed but let the worms and pods keep the fuge clean. I really think it is more your personal preference than any thing. Well and what type of maintance you want to do. I can see we're bb would be a lot easier.

 

[revhtree Verified Admin]

Shallow sand bed for me!

 

[mallorieGgator]

I keep a medium to deep sand bed but I really prefer the look of a bare bottom once it encrusts with coraline. Plus I think it is easier getting good flow down to the bottoms of bare-bottom tanks.

 

[redtop03]

shallow sand for me,don't like the look of bare bottom and didn't want the added expense of more sand for a deep bed :tongue:

 

[btkrausen]

Shallow bed, maybe a few inches at the most. More than that and I think it takes away from the swimming room. IMO - No sand = unnatural look

 

[spsreefer]

I keep a 4 inch deep sand bed in my 30 gal mixed reef mainly because it provides a large surface area for bacteria (nitrate reduction). I started the sand bed 4 months ago and never had to vacuum due to the microfauna and cuc keeping it clean. The critters include nessarius snails, orange hair/spaghetti worms, baby bristle worms, mini brittle stars, & stomatella snails. Here's some pics of spaghetti worms with their tentacles out:

The sand really looks like new due to these guys checking each pebble for detrius

 

[VegasRick]

I prefer BB. Easier to clean and for the long term much safer than a sand bed. I think beginners should start without sand beds too. Once they have learned to maintain a BB for a year or two then move on to a sand bed. Sand beds are nutrient traps, in a properly ran system it's not a problem. With someone who lacks the experience though it can give them a false sense of security. The sand bed will trap and keep nutrients unavailable, until it reaches a certain level, then all heck breaks loose. Algae blooms that are out of control, and nothing seems to help. Often this person gets so frustrated they even leave the hobby.

 

[ReeferBen]

It depends on what type of system I am planning on running. For a softy tank a sand bed of a few inches IMO makes the tank look nicer and denitrifies as well. In a SPS dominate tank I go BB because the flow is high enough in the tank to keep the detritus under control and I can get the tank into ULN conditions. These conditions wouldn't be necessary or even desirable in some softie set ups.

 

[gmoney243]

I use a 1" sandbed max I just just enough to cover and provide shelter for my melanurus wrasse and diamond goby who also keeps it all cleaned so no need to vacuum sand.

 

[skinz78]

I keep a 2" sandbed in my tank and like mentioned before I have a BB fuge, I go there first when I do water changes and suck all the detritus out. Then I vaccum the top layer of my sand.

 

[Paul_N]

DSB!

I have never vacuumed my sandbed once in all my years of reef keeping and it looked great. Any uneaten food never sat on the sand for more than 30 sec cause the worms would rise like zombies and devour it. I had a 5 inch wrasse die in my sandbed and never had an issue with N & P.

 

[Degener8]

I prefer a deep sand bed but I am getting ready to do a bare bottom tank because I want to keep lower nutrients and higher flow so I will use a remote DSB isntead..

 

[ca2or]

I prefer BB. Easier to clean and for the long term much safer than a sand bed. I think beginners should start without sand beds too. Once they have learned to maintain a BB for a year or two then move on to a sand bed. Sand beds are nutrient traps, in a properly ran system it's not a problem. With someone who lacks the experience though it can give them a false sense of security. The sand bed will trap and keep nutrients unavailable, until it reaches a certain level, then all heck breaks loose. Algae blooms that are out of control, and nothing seems to help. Often this person gets so frustrated they even leave the hobby.

If you have diamond gobies and sand sifting stars you won't have dirty sand.....well I don't anyway

 

[Hannan1313]

I also prefer a shallow sand bed. I have read too many "deep sand bed" stories gone wrong... BB looks pretty good once it has matured, I myself have just never tried it.

 

[BarbH]

Shallow sand bed