Sand or no sand- if you had to so it again

agiacosa

Member
New to SPS. Read too many posts going one way or the other.

Forgetting about looks. Purely from ease of maintenance and nutrient control. If you had it to do over again, would you go bare bottom?

If sand is your answer, would appreciate knowing why and if you would go with less than 1 inch, 2-3 inches or DSB. Again, for an SPS-dominant tank.

Thanks in advance for sharing your thoughts and experience.


Regards,

Art
 
everyone has their own way of reefing, so have to keep that in mind and take all info in and decide the way you like to have your reef.

I personally like sand as it brings stability. it also brings with it alot more maintanance .... you can not blow the detritus off bottom glass, so you have to siphon the sand.

also many animals need it to thrive.
 
Personally, I will never have a tank without sand. That being said, I would love the ease of maintenance that would come along with a bare bottom tank.
 
I also would never have a tank without sand. I run a 4" sand bed and do not vaccume or stir it. With smaller sandbeds, you have to maintain them, but my understanding with deeper sand beds is you leave them alone and let them process the waste within them.

However, with SPS you generally need high flow, and that can be an issue with sand beds. I couldnt keep my sand in place until I added several large corals to absorb and divert the flow. The problem just solved itself after I started adding more corals.
 
I also would never have a tank without sand. I run a 4" sand bed and do not vaccume or stir it. With smaller sandbeds, you have to maintain them, but my understanding with deeper sand beds is you leave them alone and let them process the waste within them.

not really true as they become a nutrition sink .... deep sand beds just collect detritus and rotting stuff.... and they continue rotting... releasing po4 and more .... untill gone.

DSB and a SPS tank with low nutritions and glowing corals is not really happening .... sure you can have good growth but po4 will not be low enough for corals to glow :)
 
I will always have a shallow sandbed, 1-2". I like the look of it even though it is a lot more work. Barebottom just doenst look right to me, unless its a frag tank.
 
If I had to do it again, I would go barebottom. I had a barebottom and now I have 1-2 inches sand. Barebottom was considerably easier to keep N03 levels lower for me. I do like the looks of sand better though. :D
 
After years of sand beds, both shallow and deep, my latest venture is barebottom, and I have absolutely no regrets.
 
I have been using DSB's for almost 10yrs. So naturally I went with a DSB for my SPS tank.

During the last year or two I have done a lot of research, off RC, and away from Shimek, and have realized that a DSB is not a magic sand box. I tried siphoning the sand bed monthly to remove detritus, and did it for about 10months, and its a huge pain, and I still get brown sand.

I do not like it, and if I had it to do over again, I would go barebottom.... I just would have to figure out the asthetics. I like the look of nice clean white sand.

fwiw, I also tried a shallow bed in another tank, and it was a nitrate nightmare.
 
I had BB and sandbed, i liked the huge flow i could get with BB but hated the corraline and muck growing on the bottom...i was scraping it weekly.

With my current tank i have a very thin layer of sand...about 1cm. i never vacuum it but each week with a water change i use a comb and shuffle the sandbed...takes about a minute to do and throws up a cloud into the tank but the corals go crazy and love it. a few hours later all cleared up. I dont have nutrient problem at all with this way...if you left it for a few months then did this i dont think it would be too good for the tank
 
I have a 1.5" sand bed. I like all the creatures that live in it, and my gobie that sifts through it all day. I want a more realistic look with everything.
 
I had a 3-4 inch sand bed for years. When I built my new tank I decided to start with BB.
I hated it.
Crud was always building up in different corners and different nooks and crannies. It was easy to siphon and mix up, but I'm a big believer in low maintenance for tanks. I added 1 inch of sand with some cc to keep it churned and clean and I'm a lot happier. No more maintenance. Once in a blue moon (every 4 months or so) I'll stir up my SSB and let my filter sock catch the crud. I'm at 2 years with the tank now with no regrets. All SPS are doing fine. Best part about starting with a BB is the fact that you can always add sand later. Much harder to go BB once you've started with sand. So go for it.
 
I had DSB before and crashed twice. Maybe I neglected to vacuum it more often. Now I have about 1" sand bed. My yellow coris and melanarus wrasses don't mind at all. No problem with nutrient issues.
 
I have been using DSB's for almost 10yrs. So naturally I went with a DSB for my SPS tank.

During the last year or two I have done a lot of research, off RC, and away from Shimek, and have realized that a DSB is not a magic sand box. I tried siphoning the sand bed monthly to remove detritus, and did it for about 10months, and its a huge pain, and I still get brown sand.

I do not like it, and if I had it to do over again, I would go barebottom.... I just would have to figure out the asthetics. I like the look of nice clean white sand.

fwiw, I also tried a shallow bed in another tank, and it was a nitrate nightmare.

A few questions on this - Why away from RC and away from Shimek? Is there bias from these sources?

For those using a DSB - are you seeding it with stuff from IPSF / Inland Aquatics? I mean - Shimek et al are pretty adamant that you need the critters in the bed to eat the detritus for you and if your going without - its like your trying to use the advise as a menu - pick this and ignore that. or is the advise from Shimek et al on critters totally bogus and it doesn't work?
 
Sand for looks, But i have a remote DSB that I can take off line if it turns sour or anything like that happens. So that is what I would do again. 1-2" for looks and 40 breeder with 8"DSB!
 
A few questions on this - Why away from RC and away from Shimek? Is there bias from these sources?

For those using a DSB - are you seeding it with stuff from IPSF / Inland Aquatics? I mean - Shimek et al are pretty adamant that you need the critters in the bed to eat the detritus for you and if your going without - its like your trying to use the advise as a menu - pick this and ignore that. or is the advise from Shimek et al on critters totally bogus and it doesn't work?

this is by far, one of the most debated subjects .... so we should all rn our own experiements and make conclutions based on that :)

even with all creatures, the simple law of physics stands "what goes in, must come out" so all the detritus and rotting stuff going in the sand bed, getting carried by organisms low, and eventually turning into gas, po4, no3, methane, sulfate and many other stuff, will stay in system and rot, and rot and .... giving rise to many elements we dont want.

of course, in a softies tank, this provides some great food for the corals, specially since they do like some dirt in their water.

but SPS where we want clean water and so on. DSB seems to go against that.

I have had DSB for many years, and about 3 years on a SPS tank, till I removed it. [this was my last SPS tank] so its based on my observation and use of them.
 
Back
Top