Bare Bottom over Sand?

[Novi]

Now I know one of the perks of having a bare botom is ease of clean, but what else are we talking about here? A read on another forum that a sand bed needs to be atleast 4-6+ inches for it to even work, if not then its going to backfire and *@ all over your system with Nitrites/Trates? Who here has a sandbed 6 inches deep.... If you have any kind of flow, how can you keep it 6" all the way across??

 

I've never had a BB tank before. To me I never thought they looked good. Plus doesn't it take WAY LONGER for your tank to mature? I can see if all your doin is growing and fraggin coral then sure, why not run a BB? But as a display tank, I thought the idea was to replicate what a real ocean floor looks like?

 

I dunno.... I think I know something after a long while, then I read a thread and I feel like I dont know *@ all over again.

[treesprite]

Less than 2" or deeper than 4". The benefits of a DSB can be had from sand in a separate container, without having any sand in the tank.

[Brian Ward]

Now I know one of the perks of having a bare botom is ease of clean, but what else are we talking about here? A read on another forum that a sand bed needs to be atleast 4-6+ inches for it to even work, if not then its going to backfire and *@ all over your system with Nitrites/Trates? Who here has a sandbed 6 inches deep.... If you have any kind of flow, how can you keep it 6" all the way across??

 

I've never had a BB tank before. To me I never thought they looked good. Plus doesn't it take WAY LONGER for your tank to mature? I can see if all your doin is growing and fraggin coral then sure, why not run a BB? But as a display tank, I thought the idea was to replicate what a real ocean floor looks like?

 

I dunno.... I think I know something after a long while, then I read a thread and I feel like I dont know *@ all over again.

 

For a sand bed to accumulate a significant quantity of denitrifying bacteria it must be 6"+. This is so there is enough low-oxygen area to force the bacteria to break apart the NO3 molecule into N2 and O2 in order to obtain the oxygen it needs. However, a sand bed less than 6" is still useful as it houses lots of critters that process fish waste and bacteria that will convert ammonia to nitrite and nitrite to nitrate. It also provides some buffering capacity to help maintain pH. If you want to go barebottom, do it because you like the look.

[Novi]

Well I plan on running a DSB in my fuge. If you run a BB, how long would it take for a new tank to cycle? Also as far as a CUC, thats pretty much out of the question yes? Well except for maybe hermit crabs for hair algae, but as far as snails, not having any type of SB in your DT what will they eat and there purpose?

[Brian Ward]

Well I plan on running a DSB in my fuge. If you run a BB, how long would it take for a new tank to cycle? Also as far as a CUC, thats pretty much out of the question yes? Well except for maybe hermit crabs for hair algae, but as far as snails, not having any type of SB in your DT what will they eat and there purpose?

 

cycle time will depend on the amount of bacteria in your rock when you put it in the tank and how much die off there is. No way to say if it will be more or less than with a sand bed. Snails will be OK but no nassarius - stick with mostly cerith and you should be fine. Hermits should also generally be OK.

[Novi]

cycle time will depend on the amount of bacteria in your rock when you put it in the tank

 

 

The rock will be base rock from BRS so there will not be any bacteria. I plan on just doing the raw shrimp cycle.

[Brian Ward]

The rock will be base rock from BRS so there will not be any bacteria. I plan on just doing the raw shrimp cycle.

 

You'll need some bacteria from somewhere. You should buy some rubble or maybe a piece or two from a LFS or someone here and put it in the tank with the BRS rock to introduce the bacteria. The raw shrimp will provide the ammonia to feed the bacteria and cause it to multiply. Introduce fish slowly to allow your bacteria to colonize the rock and multiply in proportion to your bioload. Your cycle will take a while - I would expect 4-6 weeks since you will have so little bacteria to start with.

[Coral Hind]

I run a BB for a few reasons.

1. I got tired of the flow blowing sand around.

2. My clowns would dig the away from the anemone and make a mess all over the acans and corals.

3. I wanted to reduce the chances of scratching the glass.

4. I had a tank crash from a 6 year old 4" southdown sand bed that leached stuff into the water.

5. There is a lot more tank area without the deep sand taking it up. Remove the sand and you gain 6" of usable height.

[Novi]

Ok the more and more I read about this, BB is def. the way to go!! I was skeptic at first but the advantages of a BB tank just outway the negative by a ton!

 

Check out some threads if your also curious.....

 

http://www.thereeftank.com/forums/f164/?order=desc

[sdah0414]

I've never liked the look of a bare bottom tank. Just doesn't look natural to me. I've always had a bed of around 2 - 3 inches. Looks good and seems to work fine.

[OldReefer]

I have done a bare bottom with starboard and a fake sand bed (sand in an epoxy resin). I also had a big DSB in a 90 gallon fuge.

 

If I had room for a big fuge in my current setup I would do it again.

 

As far as your cycle goes, consider using MB7 and some sort of bacteria in a bottle. There are plenty out there. I used live rock with MB7 and it cycled in just a few days. No big ammonia spike. It was pretty amazing.

 

By the way real reefs don't normally rise out of sandbeds. On the barrier reef, you can't even see the bottom from the reef crest. Just rocks, coral and water.

[sdah0414]

By the way real reefs don't normally rise out of sandbeds. On the barrier reef, you can't even see the bottom from the reef crest. Just rocks, coral and water.

 

That may be true, but there isn't exactly a reflective sheet of glass underneath the corals either.

[Coral Hind]

My glass is covered with coralline algae, nothing reflective about it.