sps tank sand or no sand

[tburke]

building a new sps reef should i use sand or not. anyone know about using the star board

 

[lancer99]

It's up to you...I like DSBs for their ability to process detritus, and it lets me skim less aggressively.

You can accomplish the same thing by going BB, more flow and more aggressive skimming.

-R

 

[new_world_disor]

sand bed all the way. but eveyone has a different view. i thjink BB is a little ugly. but there are some stunning BB tanks around

 

[Wrench]

Shallow sand bed.

 

[ricks]

BB

 

[widmer]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=12399973#post12399973 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by new_world_disor
sand bed all the way. but eveyone has a different view. i thjink BB is a little ugly. but there are some stunning BB tanks around

I agree there are stunning bare bottom tanks around, like leonardo's formosa forest. But I've got to wonder, are these tanks stunning with or in spite of their bare bottoms? My side-point is also that I haven't seen a bare bottom tank that I thought was phenomenal which didn't have extensively lush SPS corals.

It has been a lot of deliberation for me, but I've determined I'm going to do a 1/2 inch sand bed which can always be siphoned out later if I want to go the bare bottom direction (I knew those gravel vacuuming siphons might be good for something one day!)

 

[Musho3210]

bare bottom, cover the bottom with some sort of coral "mat" (green star polyps, zoas etc)

just my .02

 

[crichard6069]

For SPS you can get some mega flow in a barebottom without have to worry about sand storms. That's a definite plus when doing an SPS tank.

 

[shag26272]

I am about to go barebottom for he first time, I have had too much trouble with keeping the sand in place with high flow for my SPS, also I helped a friend move his tank which was barebottom and it was 10 times easier without the sand.