You will notice stuff end up on the bottom of your tank with just rock, I would think i would just be silt and small amounts of detritus produced from whatever is living in the rock.

I went BB and will never go back to a sand bed. I do my weekly water change and siphon the bottom of whatever detritus is there. Unless you are keeping sandbed-living fish such as shrimp gobies or something, there is no reason to keep a sand bed as long as you have live rock. Unless you like the sand bed look better... personally I enjoy the BB look better, plus I don't have to look at 3-4" of sand in the front of my tank.

I was thinking of getting a catilina gobie for my tank after the cycle

Catalina gobies are actually temperate water species, will not do well in a reef tank.

Remember that Catalina gobies are from more temperate waters (California coast) and do best at temperatures around 60 degrees F. I think the highest they can tolerate is 74F but not for long. You'd have to pretty much plan your tank around them.

Christy :)

Thanks

Does anyone have any suggestions on types of fish that would be suitable for my tank size 15L

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This stood out in my mind...What he didn't tell you that has been recently dicovered is that the 10% of those "bugs" account for about 85 to 90% of the denitrification process, all of which occures withing the first 3/4 inches of sand in an aquarium.

I'm not taking sides with the issue as I almost went bare bottom with my new tank. Instead I went with a 1 inch bed and utilize a diverse cleanup crew. I enjoy watching those little guys almost as much as the fish, thus I have placed more importance on a sandbed.

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is this a new development that you need bugs for denitrification? the sand alone will denitrify with bacteria no need for pods, worms ect. and what was meant for a working sand bed is long term like 15 years ect.. if you have the right bugs ie. the little est one eats the bacteria that breakdown the nitrate, and a bigger one eats that and so on and so on until the fish are the last of the removal chain then theoretically a sand bed will be self sustaining and never plug up. this is what cannot happen in our tanks and it is why after anywhere from 1 to 5 years most sand beds start creating more problems than they solve. so there are no bugs needed for nitrification only a pours surface of the right depth and bacteria, hence this is why rock works just as good and is the original filter. but yes I agree bugs are fun to watch and I have just as many mysis, pods, worms as I did in the sand bed, is just that I am getting old and can't stay up that late to watch them anymore hehe :mrgreen:

Steve

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So, do you recommend replacing a sand bed at least once every 5 years?
(I don't think I would care for BB).

Actually, by the time you've changed one out after 4-5 years, you will not ever want to repeat the experience (ime :wink:)

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So with my BB tank, how does one explain 0 ppm NO3? Sand CAN be home to bacteria, but inthe absence of sand, more than enough "bugs" exist on and in the rock to perform denitrification.