Thinking of bare bottoms

[Jgoal55]

I mean bare bottom

Anyway, my tanks been up and running for a couple of years now. In about a year or so, I plan on going back to a larger tank and in the meantime, I am sort of considering this tank an "experimental tank."

It currently has sand but I am considering removing it all just to give bare bottom a shot because if I don't do it in this tank, I probably never will.

What would be the best way to remove all the sand without causing a cycle? I would imagine a little at a time obviously but thinking there's more to it than that.

Also, anyway to go bare bottom but keep my Randall's goby and pistol happy?


Thanks.

 

[jonnyu]

Well I was thinking of doing the same and posted it up here a few months ago. I'm sure if you search you will find it. Bare bottom is nice but it does not keep your nitrates and phosphates down. The people here that have tried bare bottom tanks complained about not being to keep tank phosphate / nitrates levels low enough. If you do go with BBT let us know how it's going. If you are using apex fusion keep track of water parameters and post the result. It would be really cool to see

 

[ERivera65]

Bare Bottom seems like a great way to keep the tank and the best thing is you can blast the tank with flow and not worry about the sand being moved around. I was just at World Wide Corals this past weekend for Reefapalooza and their tanks are mostly bare bottom. The best thing is putting corals on the bottom of the tank and when they encrust on the bottom it looks pretty amazing and then you can also frag them like they do with their montis that encrust to the bottom. As far as the pistol shrimp and goby, I am not sure if its a good thing for the shrimp since they burrow under the rocks in the sand. I know for suer my next tank will be a bare bottom, I love the fact of having a good amount of flow to suspend detritus and the corals on the bottom panel of the tank.

 

[Lacy]

.... when they encrust on the bottom it looks pretty amazing and then you can also frag them like they do with their montis that encrust to the bottom.....

I am not sure what you are saying. How do they get them off of the bottom to frag if they are encrusted? I like my sand, but I can see where the bare bottom would be good.

 

[Lacy]

I have seen some bare bottoms where the water flow is a certain way and it makes all the crap go to one spot. This makes it easy to siphon out.

 

[ERivera65]

I am not sure what you are saying. How do they get them off of the bottom to frag if they are encrusted? I like my sand, but I can see where the bare bottom would be good.

They scrape the montis from under the coral and they pop off the bottom.

 

[Lacy]

Ok.

 

[JIK]

I went bare bottom after like two years. Just do one section at a time, it took me about 10 water changes to do. You definitely dont want to scoop out the sand as that will cause a lot of nasty stuff to go into the water column. Just remove as much as you can with a hose everytime you do a waterchange. I did about 40% waterchanges each time. Everything survived but I have mostly LPS and RFA.

 

[Jgoal55]

Thanks guys...

We'll see if I pull the trigger. Still a bit hesitant.

I'll definitely keep you all posted.

JIK,.....figured bit at a time was way to go. Good to know it worked out for you.

 

[fasteddie222]

I have BB tank and my tank is super healthy. I'll try to post a picture later. The corals do encrust ok the floor but the don't stick you can just pick them up. You're more than welcome to come check out my tank

 

[knukles55]

I like my bottoms bare but not my tank :beer:

 

[Blueline12]

Do it. I will never have sand again. I'm not sure who says they can't keep nitrates and phosphates down. I've got zero nitrates and 0-.05 phosphates and I feed heavy.

Just siphon out a portion during a weekly water changes over a few weeks.

 

[jets17]

Do it. I will never have sand again. I'm not sure who says they can't keep nitrates and phosphates down. I've got zero nitrates and 0-.05 phosphates and I feed heavy.

Just siphon out a portion during a weekly water changes over a few weeks.

blueline, were you using the white starboard to protect your glass bottom?

 

[mlivvy]

Imo..

bb = lfs tank

sand = real reef tank

 

[Blueline12]

Initially I used starboard but removed it due to detritus getting underneath and around the ends. Now I just took plastic pieces and siliconed them to the major pressure points of the rocks.

Much easier to siphon the detritus without starboard.

blueline, were you using the white starboard to protect your glass bottom?

 

[ERivera65]

Imo..

Imo..... shut up! LOL j/k, I like the looks of sand also and I like to run about a 1"-2" sandbed that I can easily siphon or stir to clean. other than that, they become nitrate sinks. But still I am really thinking about going barebottom with some starboard on the bottom.