Bare bottomed for 3 months, observations & questions

LouH

LouH

LouH
I had to move my reef tank in October. At that time I decided to not put the shallow sandbed (sugar fine) back into the main display while keeping 2 refugiums, both with DSBs. All livestock has remained the same, and husbandry practices have remained the same.

What have I observed?

SPS (Montipora, Acropora, Stylophora, Bird's Nest) growth and color appear to be similar if not a little better.
Zooanthid and Ricordea growth and color appear to be similar but one Zooanthid colony is showing polyp bailout.
A rose anemone's health appears to be similar
LPS health categorically appears to be on the decline.
1. A large hammerhead colony has less vibrant color
2. An open brain coral is showing tissue recession
3. A Blastomussa colony's health is in obvious decline

Other observations:

1. Had a red Cyanobacteria breakout show up about 3 weeks ago. This is the first one I've had in over 5 years. I cut back feeding and it seems to be dying back.
2. The Cheatomorpha ball in my refugium died.
3. The rate of accumulation of detritus in the tank is much higher than expected.

One thing that I expected to see after removing the display sandbed was an improvement in water quality and improved growth and color in my SPS. While this seems to be the case, I'm not 100% convinced it really is any better than when I had the shallow sandbed.

I also expected to see a big improvement in my ability to remove detritus due to the fact that it wasn't going to become buried or embedded in the sandbed. I'm pretty amazed at how much fish poop gets produced in a week's time. However, it doesn't seem to find its way into the corners where I can easily siphon it out. It gets trapped in the nooks and crannies of the live rock and you still have to work fairly hard to get it out. I wonder if the removal of all sand from the display has taken away micro & macro fauna that would process this waste?

Anyway, I can't make any definitive statements as to whether or not the bare bottomed display is better for my water quality and invertebrates than the shallow sand bed that I once had. Perhaps I need to wait longer before coming to any conclusions?

Lou
 
Did you keep almost all of the old water? Eric Borneman once told me regarding post-move problems. A sudden loss of bacteria and micro-fauna due to a big water change is enough to stress/ kill corals. Also, if you have DSB's and BB plus syphoning. I guess nutrients a very low. Let PO4/NO3 rise a little. 0.03 ppm/ 3-5ppm.
 
I had to hold my livestock in intermediate containers for a week or so, and yes, there was a fairly large water change (or two) when I put everything back into the display.
 
I don't understand how low phosphates can be an issue. I thought that one of the primary markers for good water quality is low phosphate. On the reef it is found ppb concentrations.
 
If you are entering a low nutrient situation which appears so if your cheato died off, this could also affect your LPS coral. You may need to supplement amino acids or some additional food for the LPS.
 
LouH, I think the problem is you have removed your sand. Your ssb was collecting all the detritus the fishes were creating, and all that nutrients were being released in a small amount to the tank.

Now, with no sand and you collecting all detritus, there's no nutrients for corals, specially LPS which need more nutrients than SPS to thrive
 
Hmmm. I was going to go bare bottom in my new tank but now after reading this I may not. Very interesting. I will follow along to see the long term effects.
 
I don't think you can definitively attribute all those livestock changes to going bare bottom when you are switching from one tank to another one at the same time.
I took all existing water, rock, livestock, equipment from a bb tank and moved it in a matter of hours to another bb tank on the opposite side in the same room. It took about 6 months for the "new" tank to stabilize into what I would consider an established system. I lost a substantial amount of SPS and LPS during those months, even though all I changed was the box containing everything and the stand holding it. I assumed that simply relocating existing contents into a new container would result in an immediately established and stable system, but I found that not to be the case.
My previous experience of taking sand out of an existing tank to go bare bottom, and doing nothing else to it, was a positive one. Livestock took a significant turn for the better.
 
Did you have the remote DSBs before or are they new?

Soft corals not doing well I would def attribute to low nutrients. Dont skim for a little while or feed they system more and see what happens.
 
Having gone from even from a 3" sand bed on previous tanks to my current system which is bare bottom, the biggest difference is in the management. You definitely become more aware of what's going on in the tank especially waste and cal & alk. Cleaning is so much easier because I can just put a storm (6000 gph) through the tank (6x2) once a week and anything that didn't get flushed out in the ebb and flow of the week ends up in the physical filters. There is no cloud from the arragonite from the heavy flow. Cleaning the glass is interesting since I end up cleaning 5 panels rather than 4. I do pay more attention to the cal & alk even for the fish only tanks because there is less of a buffer, at least I have convinced myself there used to be more of one. The overall process seems more clean and technical than it used to be. I think that when there is a any kind of sand bed we imbue it with almost magical qualities of detritus consumption, nitrate filtration, etc. and that pretty much goes away and you actually have to do something specific to address those issues. Like the others, I seriously doubt that that changes you are seeing are solely the difference between the sand beds being there and not, its much more likely its just a new system which requires a different management style.
 
Prestigious said:
Did you have the remote DSBs before or are they new?

Soft corals not doing well I would def attribute to low nutrients. Dont skim for a little while or feed they system more and see what happens.
Click to expand...

Soft corals (Zoos, Ricordea, Xenia) are all doing great. My Xenia are actually growing at a very rapid rate. So much so that they are now my nutrient export mechanism since the Chaeto died. They look fantastic also.

Of the two remote DSBs, one is in a 20 gallon Brute garbage can that was left intact during the move. It was also kept alive through the whole thing by being part of the temporary setup I had going while putting the main display system back together. My move, by the was, was a short two miles, so maintaining water temp and salinity was not an issue during the move.

The DSB on my 15 gallon DIY acrylic tank was emptied during the move. I rinsed the sand thoroughly and put it back in place after the system was reassembled. That tank is crawling with isopods and amphipods, as well as various snail types that were not intentionally put in there, so that refugium is doing what it is intended to do.

Since starting this thread, I've noticed that my SPS corals look better the day after I do a thorough vacuuming of detritus from the tank bottom and blow off the rocks with a powerhead. I've also started doing 2 gallon water changes every other day in addition to a 5 gallon change on the weekend when I vacuum detritus (100 gallons net system volume). These husbandry techniques seem to be having a positive efffect on my corals. My LPS are still doing relatively poorly with the exception of a Favites, which has developed amazing flourescent green valleys. A large anchor/hamerhead colony seems fine if not slightly faded. However, I attribute this to an increase in lighting intensity two weeks ago when I lowered my 250W halide pendants about 1"-1.5" They are about 15" off of the surface of an 18" deep tank.

I am also feeding Coral Frenzy every third day, and this too seems to be having a positive effect on SPS color.

What is really interesting about all of this is that I notice changes in my SPS color expression from day to day. If colors start getting pale, I do a thorough cleaning and it seems to bring the colors back.

Lou
 
Your tank is a barebottom display with sandbed sumps..............not the same as a BB tank setup which is stritly old style Berlin..........no sand anywhere in the system.

It does't make your observations of less value...............just that if BB is the far left & DSB is the far right, you are right in the middle.

The other point worth mentioning is that I wouldn't make any pure conclusions on observations until you get to the 6+ month range.

Also if you want objective observations take accurate pictures of specific SPS corals once a month or so........that will tell you a lot.
 
Last edited:
A short report back to those following along:

- SPS are looking good and growing fast. I have several large Montipora colonies that have actually started to change shape. Where they use to grow upward with long, finger like columns, they now flare out laterally with smaller vertical growths. The lightinig has remained the same. My lamps are at the 9 month mark, and I'm going to change them out in the next couple of months with Hamilton 20,000K lamps (currently using Hamilton 14,000Ks).

- Zoos, Ricordea & Xenia look good, colors are vivid.

- LPS health is mixed bag. My hammerhead, torch coral and brain coral look decent, but my candycanes are dying. Before the move, the candycanes looked great and were growing quickly.

- I have a Dersa clam that is growing rapidly. I'll probably have to trade it in at some point because it will be too large for my tank.

Finally, last week I changed out my calcium reactor needle valve for a LiterMeterIII dosing pump. I did this in an attempt to have better control of reactor effluent dosing. The needle valve constantly needed tinkering. I'm probably going to have to start traveling periodically for work soon, and the dosing pump seems to be a more reliable option while I'm away from the tank.

Lou
 
I was under the impression that fish fecal matter is nutrition for lps corals? maybe not enough but it should help. And whats wrong with having that low of phosphates? I wish I had that problem, I am sitting at .04 mq/l as of tonight and have a large algae problem.
 
I've always heard the same thing about fish poop feeding LPS. I see it from time to time, so there is likely some validity there.

My tank report remains about the same. SPS, Zoos and Ricordea look good and are growing. Coral colors are clearly better the day after the detritus is vacuumed out of the tank, and they fade noticably if I don't vacuum frequently.

Chaeto starting to grow again.

Lou
 
Your rocks will leach crap for a year or more then it will settle down. That is probably a good chunk of the detritus.

If I had it to do over again when I switched to barebottom I would have got new rocks, cooked the old ones or just not moved to barebottom in the first place. I never had the algae problems I fought over the past two years with sand. Super pale corals while trying to starve the algae isn't fun.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

R
some random questions
Replies
1
Views
189
SantaMonica
S
S
200 Gallon Mixed Reef - Rock Questions
2
Replies
20
Views
448
wvned
wvned
D
Bulkhead Installation Question
Replies
2
Views
428
wvned
wvned
rrrrob
Thoughts on Purigen?
Replies
11
Views
691
alejandrodia
A
Perth_reefer
Temperature fluctuations for SPS
Replies
3
Views
258
Perth_reefer
Perth_reefer
Back
Top