bare bottom???

[sherman]

What's the latest advice about going bare bottom? Is that the easiest solution?

I have a 180 gal., fish only: a dog face, a porcupine, a sailfin, a koran and a picasso.

I must be over feeding (it's a lot of feeding the puffers), I just can't seem to get rid of the red algae.

Advice? Thanks.

 

[spamin76]

I would not go barebottom with a triggerfish. So much of their behavior is geard toward looking for food in the sand, which is why they constantly mess around and spit sand.

Some people would disagree with me here, but I think it is sort of cruel to the fish in this case, since they will be cut off from a crucial part of their natural behavior. If you didn't have a trigger, I would say it is not such a big deal, but with a trigger in the mix, I think it is a big deal.

 

[JustinReef]

I agree completely with above. My puffers LOVE to spit in the sand and eat from it. I would hate to go barebottom. That and it looks so ugly barebottom

There should be other ways for you to reduce nitrates and thus the algae. How big is your fuge? What are you growing?

 

[LisaD]

I have a compromise for that in my bb 120 that has worked well. I have some coral rubble on the bottom of the tank. It started out as pieces of live rock that had broken off in shipment. The trigger, puffer and tuskfish mess with it, and don't seem to be at all missing sand. Sometimes they carry it around and drop it, other times they just chew on it.

 

[sherman]

I only have a sump with a etss skimmer, no refuge. The water goes from the tank down a shaft about 4" X 4" and 36 high through bio-balls to the sump, there it goes through the skimmer and then back to the tank from two different pipes (I have a scud hooked up to one of them) so the water comes out from various places. And there are about 4 powerheads in the tank on timers (15 minutes on, 15 minutes off).

Bare bottom is ugly, no question about it, but maybe what LisaD suggested is a good compromise with one slight change, say about 1 inch of coral sand?

Any advice, comments appreciated.

 

[LisaD]

unless you have a sand-burrowing wrasse, I think a 1-2" shallow sand bed, maybe a corner with some fun rubble to play with, sounds fine.