Sand or Bare Bottomed?

[lukestimp]

I know I've done it now, opened a whole can of worms and lost the lid.

Last Night I was working on my 12 Gallon Nano that has had a bad problem with Bubble algae and I was removing Each piece of rock removing what I could find and then Placing it into a 10G Holding tank with nothing but fresh Saltwater in it.

Once I had all the rock out, my wife asked me if I was gonna leave the rock in the 10G with no sand or anything and i said no it's gonna go back into the Nano. She said ohh, it looks kinda cool just being rock in there.

After sitting back and looking at it for awhile and moving some rocks around like I was aquascaping, I think she may be right!

So here's the Question in my 29 Gallon Office reef should I go Bare Bottom or Sand? What exactly are the benefits of each?

 

[glxtrix]

BB ALL THE WAY! lol. Its a personal preference really. If you like the look, it has many advantages. But you need to have the proper tools for it to work in your favor. Higher flow, BB tanks are great for SPS. Not really recommended for softies and some LPS, but they generally are ok (LPS that is). The strong flow is to get all the crap that usually settels in/on the sand bed up and into the water column, so then it can be exported from the tank via your skimmer. Generally the better a skimmer, the better things will be with BB. Doesn't mean you have to have the biggest baddest skimmer, just means you may have to mod it to properly work for you....unless you already have a sweet skimmer. Thats really the basics of BB....keep it clean, have flow going, skim hard and enjoy

 

[drnecropolis]

BB is the devil!
Just kidding, if you were going to try it Lee is the one to ask, he has one of those "strange" tanks..
He nailed an important issue, lots of flow...got to keep dietritus suspended in the water column

 

[lukestimp]

Ok well let me ask this, I have this Idea of making the 29G a total Xenia Forest with nothing but a Couple Clowns so would I be better off going with a sand bottom?

 

[george]

Unless you decide to do a deep sand bed (4" or deeper, depending on what grain size of sand is used), sand or no sand is really an issue of aesthetics. Granted, having sand on the bottom does mean you need to include maintenance routines and (possibly) critters that you don't have to with BB. There is also the issue of shifting sand leaving unsightly bare glass spots. "Unsightly" in the sense that it looks goofy with the sand there -- though I'm not a fan of BB for aesthetic reasons. However *any* sand needs maintenance. If you're not going to do it, then don't include it.

 

[glxtrix]

I have never been able to grow xenia in my tank. Xenia LOVES dirty water! (high nutrients) Quickest way to dirty water is with sand (oh I'm gonna catch it for saying that) I tried to have a xenia forest in my sump for another source of nutrient export. It withered away in a weeks time. I currently have some xenia that was given to me from Jorge when he broke down his tank....withering away. my tank has nutrients, I know because it has algae, but not nearly enough to sustain xenia.

 

[lukestimp]

Hmmm I remeber seeing somewhere before a Girl that had a Nano that won TOTM Somewhere and she had a ton of the stuff growing in there, and ever since I've wanted a tank like that, and besides then when anyone needs Frags of the stuff I can always offer up some free ones.

 

[sprayin70]

BB! I have had a bb tank for sometime now and I love it. You can have massive flow in a small tank with bb.

 

[lukestimp]

So i need to have dirty water huh? What if I use the Seaclone Skimmer I bought 2 years ago when I bought my first SW tank, a 55G with 1 Piece of rock and a Lionfish.

That thing never seemed to work right, some days it would pull muck some days nothing at all, I even modded it by cutting the chamber down inside and then by putting an airstone down in there as well.

That should give me Dirty water right!

 

[calireefer]

Don't listen to Lee, sands as important as live rock.

"Show me an ocean with no sand in it and I'll switch my tank over to bb".
I don't remember who said this.

Besides being a great breeding ground for pods and such which feed your corals, a sand bed also reflects a good deal of light back up to your coral which would have been lost to a bare bottom. Also it looks a lot more natural and helps to buffer your water.

 

[glxtrix]

First off, pods are by the trillions in my tank, they don't just need sand. besides I've seem more pods in my rock an in macro algae then crawling thu sand. Nothing reflects light better than starboard...hands down over sand. And if you don't get the right substraight, it wont buffer your water. Just throwing some curve balls in there. As far as BB goes with a junk skimmer, don't do it. You can do it, but it doesn't mean its meant to be done. The only source of nutrient export is your skimmer, without it you'll have a build up of nutrients resulting in a BB tank full of algae. Sand has its plus and its negatives, just like a BB tank. Think about what you want and go from there. In the end it comes down to proper husbandry to keep the tank nice and healthy. Start right and keep it up.

 

[FutureInterest]

It doesn't really matter. You can have a nice tank either way you want to go.

 

[glxtrix]

FutureInterest;173793 wrote: It doesn't really matter. You can have a nice tank either way you want to go.

Thats exactly right. Deciding sand or BB is purely based on if you want to see it or not.

 

[skriz]

I like the look of sand..more natural looking and I'm guessing more natural feeling to the fish.

Go with whatever looks the best to you

 

[bobz]

I'm pro-sand too. My frag tanks is BB but I end of siphoning detritus to remove what the skimmer and sump do not pull out. I ended up with zenia forest in my 20GL nano when I started throwing pieces of the stuff in there to get it out of my frag tank. Now it is covered up and I love the way that tank looks! I also have a few of the large feather dusters and some leather frags growing in it. Has a sort of "wild seas" look to it.
Bob