Best SPS Tank Substrate Choices (or lack thereof)

With the way my tank is set up it is really not noticed under the rocks. My scape is open enough where I can pass a 5/8" OD tube in there to suck it out every week during water change time.
 
My whole tank bottom is starboard. In had it installed when I bought the tank. Cost about $150 extra for it. Coralline covered in about a month. Now SPS and acans growing on it as well.
 
Getting ready to setup my 105 next week and been debating the same thing. Acutally ordered a sheet of 1/4" starboard for the bottom but just cant get past the look of no sand in tank. So will be doing a mix of pink fiji with some special grade reef sand 2/1 pink fiji to special grade. Probably around 1-1.5" of sand. Will be running a 3-4" deep sand bed in sump 24"x16" area in sump.
 
Why not start sand less and add later. Maybe it will grow on you:)
Here's a shot of my chalice growing on the bottom.
ImageUploadedByTapatalk1413681824.271786.jpg
 
Go no sand! I added sand to my 40B SPS tank, ended up taking the sand oht and boom, it was great. Started my 75 SPS tank with a thin layer of sand... 4 months later I'm taking it out! I upped my flow, and my corals are all taking off like weeds! Actually my Birdsnest literally exploded in growth within a week and covered my green digi.

Also all of my acros and milles are encrusting over and growing out like crazy.
 
I'm no closer to making a decision on this lol... really I guess the take home message is that most do a very shallow sand bed or no sand bed (or go with HDPE) in their tanks, seems like in display DSB's are a thing of the past (I wouldn't do it lol).
 
i started out with 2" of .5-1.5mm substrate. i was having some algae issue and i slowly removed all the sand except for underneath the rocks. im very pleased so far. 99% of the algae is gone and corals are doing great.

i vote BB. i will never do a coral tank with substrate again. fish only..maybe
 
I don't remember where I got my star-board. I know it was from an online dealer. Also I've have it for about a year now. Its covered in coralline algae and I think it looks nice this way. It all comes down to personal preference I think..
 
I would like to see a picture of a bare bottom completely covered with coral. Like a zoanthid carpet, or acans, or chalices, or encrusting montis, cyphastrea, etc.

Has anybody seen this?
 
I went bare bottom and love it
At first I had cloudy water but now everything is crystal clear plus u can really push the flow....I started adding zoa to the bottem f the tank and some chalice now I was get some encrusting montipora
 
TreyK said:
I would like to see a picture of a bare bottom completely covered with coral. Like a zoanthid carpet, or acans, or chalices, or encrusting montis, cyphastrea, etc.



Has anybody seen this?
Click to expand...


I'm working on it. Tanks only been up since March. Corals are already spreading over the ground pretty fast.
 
I added sand to my tank (a 180 with 3 mp40's). I then added a dragon goby. Big mistake. The mp40's would counter current the sand into piles under the pumps and the dragon goby sifting the sand will get the sand suspended into the water flow and giving a cloudy, dirty look to the tank. I would either go with a larger substrate or bb.
Jeff
 
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