Bare Bottom Starboard on sand

[stolaas]

Some of you know that I took down my tank the other day to move it to the new house and getting ready to install a new one. I have have read a lot about bare bottom tanks using starboard in the past and am thinking of doing it this time. For a more visual effect I could glue a little sand to the starboard with some pure silicon to give it a sand bottom look untill the coraline starts to grow on it.

If you had a chance to re-do your tank from scratch, would you go bare bottom?

I guess if it didn't work I could always add sand latter and is a lot easier to add sand then remove. Just wanted some opinions on what you all would do.

Thanks,
Curtis

 

[KwajRocks]

Curtis,

That is a great question, and one for much debate. I personally love my sand bed and all the critters that live in it. I am a believer in DSBs, but it hard to argue with those beautiful Japanese BBs.

 

[andyjd]

I'm considering removing my sand and rocks! and skim the heck out of it with a new skimmer.

Andy

 

[stolaas]

It is hard to find a lot of pictures of tanks with no sand and just the cutting board in them. I would like to see one in person if anyone knows where one is or who has one.

 

[kg4izw]

I built my Aquapod 24 with no substrate, and have been SOOOO happy I did. I wanted a tank that was low maintenance, so this was my reasoning. I hate sticking my arm in my tank to my elbow and siphoning the sand. In my tank, I change one gallon per week from anywhere on the water column and reach my hand to the bottom to clean algae from the corners or to pick something up that the snails bulldoze over. I can feed and feed and with 500 gph of flow in my little 24 gallon tank, the food never settles on anything. What is not caught by the fish or corals is filtered out within 3 or 4 minutes at the most. I just change my fiberfill media once or twice per week. It may be a waste of food, but my fish are fat and happy, and there is no chance of Ammonia buildup unless something dies.
When I put my wife's classroom Biocube8 together, I will do the same accept I will use a thin blue cutting board on the bottom that is trimmed to fit.
As far as pics go, I started a thread in January with a few of the tank, but when I look at them, I cant believe how much my tank has changed. I need to update those pics.
Sorry, you have to cut and paste the link:
http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=1027656

 

[stolaas]

I really love your nano, Very nice. So you are going to put in cutting board in your next one them? I think that is what I am going to do too. I have my fish in a small 10gal right now with a bare bottom while I am building the display and it is really nice to be able to have a powerhead sitting on the bottom of the tank without blowing everything around. When I put it down there all kinds of crap went flying, great way to reduce wastes I think, really keeps it suspended when you can get the bottom stuff up and flying around.