Bare Bottom Reefers

acroholicreefer

acroholicreefer

New member
How many of you guys run a bare bottom sps reef? I have always been a bare bottom sps guy in the past. After getting out of the hobby for a 1 1/2 years, I have set up new tank this past August and went bare bottom. I'm not sure if I am going to regret this or not. Cyano is showing up on the bottom of the glass. This is a 3 X 3 cube so it is impossible to siphon out most of the tank.
 
I do. I have never had cyano on my bottom ;) got plenty in my new scape using dead rock tho. Only on the new cured dead rock. Not cured enough i guess.
 
My phosphates hang around .07 (Hanna Meter), which I know is a little bit high but I wouldn't think it would lead to a cyano outbreak. I have been doing 25% water changes weekly for a month now and have not seen any decrease in the cyano.

It is tough to siphon out because the tank is so deep and 2 ft tall. I find it difficult to reach to the back of the aquarium, which is where most of the debris settles. Even if I can get back there, I cannot accurately place the hose where it needs to be to siphon out all of the debris.
 
Temporarily running barebottom on a holding tank. I have to admit, its not as bad as I thought, although I still prefer sand. I'm actually struggling with low nutrients, LOL!
 
increase the water flow in those area if you cant reach. or redirect the flow for the debris to settle in the front or area that you can reach.
if you have a lot of cyano and your reading is .07, you actual reading will be high, because the cyano are using up some the PO4.
you can buy 1/2" acrylic tube to attach to your siphoning tube, that help to reach area you cant reach.
 
I have a bare bottom tank. I've run most of my salty tanks bare bottom. Always have done. I have no issues with Cyanno.

How old is your tank? If its less than 1 year old, then I see this as a part of maturing a tank. Nothing out of the ordinary. You would have gotten Cyanno if you had sand...might even have been worse.

Get the PO4 down, and once the nitrates stabilizes around 5ppm or less, it will go away.

You can go 3 days lights out then 4 days lights on and repeat until it dies off. Siphone as much out as possible...You should be able to get a lot of it out.

My tank went through Cyanno last year. Only on a few places on the rocks. I just maintained my water changes, GFO and GAC and it went away by itself.
 
I have a BB tank too. It makes life so easy. BB also made it possible to control the pyramidellid snail population as the snails no longer have any safe haven to hide from wrasses during the light hours.
 
rovster said:
Temporarily running barebottom on a holding tank. I have to admit, its not as bad as I thought, although I still prefer sand. I'm actually struggling with low nutrients, LOL!
Click to expand...

+1 I have the same issue ULNS although I do dose vodka but only .5 ml a day (65 g total volume) and I've been feeding heavier each week to try and find a good balance... But def love my BB....once landscaped it looks so clean I gotta say plus my tanks much happier with the higher flow rate!
 
What do you guys do to prevent coraline growing on the bottom? Do you just let it grow there? I like the BB look but when the glass is clean. I wonder if anyone has painted the underside black/blue/white like we do with the back of our tanks?
 
jimrawr said:
What do you guys do to prevent coraline growing on the bottom? Do you just let it grow there? I like the BB look but when the glass is clean. I wonder if anyone has painted the underside black/blue/white like we do with the back of our tanks?
Click to expand...

some like the bottom covered in carolina it looks even more natural.... i was actually thinking about painting the underside on mine black to block the light under my stand.... it's really up to the individual how you keep your BB its personal preference aesthetically .... no matter what the objective is still the same.... you could scrape the coralina away if it's unsightly to you
 
I painted the bottom of my tank black b/c I knew it was going to be a BB system before the tank was set up. I'm really glad I did. I have also used several pieces of cutting boards to cover the bottom of the tank on systems in the past.

I'll work on getting my phosphates down and continue with the water changes. Love this discussion about Bare Bottom SPS Reefs and look forward to hearing other stories as well. This helps me justify my decision to go BB and that my cyano issues are not due to that decision. Thank you for the replies.
 
I have never had Cyano and my nano has been bare bottom since its inception 2.5 years ago. I dont think painting the bottom would make a difference as far as Coraline is concerned since it is going to grow over the bottom of the tank regardless of what color it is. If you are going to put star board down make sure to silicone it to the bottom or you can get debris under there that can become a nitrate/phosphate sink. I have heard of people putting fishing line in the silicone so they can remove the star board when the time comes.

The only downfall of BB is the limitation on livestock. I am in the process of upgrading to a far larger tank and really want a Leopard wrasse so I need to make the call whether to go back to sand or not.
 
I run bare bottom in my main display. Just let stuff grow on the bottom. Its hard enough to keep the acres of glass clean. I have a friend who has his round tank on a white piece of styrofoam and he cleans the bottom . It looks much brighter because the light reflects up off the white. I cant imagine any one else but my buddy Chris spending the time and effort to keep the bottom that spotless though. His tank is like a Japanese garden.
 
Bill Nye said:
I have never had Cyano and my nano has been bare bottom since its inception 2.5 years ago. I dont think painting the bottom would make a difference as far as Coraline is concerned since it is going to grow over the bottom of the tank regardless of what color it is. If you are going to put star board down make sure to silicone it to the bottom or you can get debris under there that can become a nitrate/phosphate sink. I have heard of people putting fishing line in the silicone so they can remove the star board when the time comes.

The only downfall of BB is the limitation on livestock. I am in the process of upgrading to a far larger tank and really want a Leopard wrasse so I need to make the call whether to go back to sand or not.
Click to expand...

Consider putting your sand in a small plastic container perhaps? No need to cover the entire bottom. (Especially under and behind the rocks)
 
I run BB in my 75 with lots of flow-esp on back bottom glass to keep waste from setteling there & keep it in suspension so the overflow can pull it out. My plywood on top of stand is painted white to reflect light & coraline is growing all over the bottom. In my old tank I had rocks on the back glass & very little flow back there leading to cyno growing there. I will never use sand again-traps too much junk in it.
 
Bill Nye said:
I have never had Cyano and my nano has been bare bottom since its inception 2.5 years ago. I dont think painting the bottom would make a difference as far as Coraline is concerned since it is going to grow over the bottom of the tank regardless of what color it is. If you are going to put star board down make sure to silicone it to the bottom or you can get debris under there that can become a nitrate/phosphate sink. I have heard of people putting fishing line in the silicone so they can remove the star board when the time comes.

The only downfall of BB is the limitation on livestock. I am in the process of upgrading to a far larger tank and really want a Leopard wrasse so I need to make the call whether to go back to sand or not.
Click to expand...

I kept a wrasse in my tank before with bare bottom. The wrasse was one of those that sleeps in the sand. I put a small tray with deep walls and sand inside. The first night, it just took the wrasse 10 minutes to look for sand, figure it was the stuff in the tray and he just dived in! Was pretty cool to see that.

He did cause the sand to come out sometimes, I just used to scoop it back in every week.
 
jimrawr said:
What do you guys do to prevent coraline growing on the bottom? Do you just let it grow there? I like the BB look but when the glass is clean. I wonder if anyone has painted the underside black/blue/white like we do with the back of our tanks?
Click to expand...

My tank is currently a bare bottom as I'll have to move again within a year and I didn't want the hassle of having to remove sand. I did paint the bottom black to match the back glass. It definitely looked better than having no paint. The rocks sit directly on the glass. The only issue I had was the area where the braces underneath are - I could not paint this area and it created a mirror on the bottom. At this point in time there's a very thin film of algae on the bottom which I don't mind at all. If I ever get around to it I plan on getting the vinyl black background they sell and slip that in between the glass and the brace. I would be curious if this would eliminate the mirror effect.
 
my wrasses just sleep in the rocks. BB seems to work. If i have high nutrients it's because i'm doing something wrong. It's nice to be able to just see where all your detrious is round it up and siphon it out. Plus with high flow and platting/tabling corals you are always fighting cleaning sand of them. Eventually stuff with grow across the bottom.
 
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