Was at World Wide Coral today...barebottom observation..

[rskillz]

First of all that place is a coral nerd's dream. Even though it sits back in an unassuming warehouse, once you walk in it is coral porn. Once I stopped oogling I made a weird observation.

I thought perhaps their giant Koralia magnums had fallen down to the base of their amazing 300g show tank until I realized they had the same setup on most of their tanks. They had their tanks barebottom, with two giant Koralias pointed at the bottom (almost resting on the bottom) with 3-5 Mp40s in constant Nutrient transport mode.

It really made me think about going barebottom and just how much better it is to run a low nutrient tank. The acros in this show tank were absolutely unbelievable. While I like the look of sand, I'm really starting to wonder...


Thoughts?

 

[crewdawg1981]

Meh... sometimes I think we're trying so hard to make these little environments so perfect it almost takes the fun out. At least thats why I want the sand.

Alternatively, I imagine that there are those that argue removing the sand bed makes life easier... my dad is a big believer in this. You just have to have a LOT of flow to keep everything and anything from settling.

 

[rskillz]

Crewdawg1981;620319 wrote: Meh... sometimes I think we're trying so hard to make these little environments so perfect it almost takes the fun out. At least thats why I want the sand.

Alternatively, I imagine that there are those that argue removing the sand bed makes life easier... my dad is a big believer in this. You just have to have a LOT of flow to keep everything and anything from settling.

Yea. There are certainly different ways of making your tank happy, but I've run into a lot of issues with my sandbed in my current tank. There is always the risk of disturbing it (if you don't clean in consistently) and nuking the tank. I hate to even know how nasty the sand is in my 72 that isn't quite 1 year old yet.

 

[acroholic]

I've read that you have to pay more attention to the parameters like KH, CA and Mag in BB tanks because you don't have the buffering from the substrate.

I don't know if this is true or not. Matt's (MvM) new 93 gallon is a BB tank. He may be the one to PM about this.

 

[rskillz]

Acroholic;620327 wrote: I've read that you have to pay more attention to the parameters like KH, CA and Mag in BB tanks because you don't have the buffering from the substrate.

I don't know if this is true or not.

So you've never ran barebottom?

 

[acroholic]

Rskillz;620328 wrote: So you've never ran barebottom?

Only when I was a baby, hehehe!:blush:

Never have had a barebottom tank. Thought about it, but like the more natural appearance of substrate. Also, you have to mount everything that goes on the bottom on a heavy frag disc or rock, or it gets blown around in a BB setup.