It all depends on the fish and other inhabitants. I went bb with the 45g for a bit, and added firefish, found out they like to lay their eggs in rubble, ie larger substrate. I can deal with the required maintenance.

Our 37g, 67g and 120g are all BB with no starboard. Wouldn't go back to a sandbed if you paid me. If you use starboard, you will have to seal the edges of the starboard so detritus doesn't get under it. Otherwise, you are defeating the purpose of going BB.

Without a sand bed, do you still get the shimmering effect from the MH lights? THe foam under my tank is grey and will absorb the light, has anyone tried putting aluminum foil between the foam under the tank and the tank to reflect the light back up?, or would that be too intense? Thanks for all the input :smile:

ya know what's sad? i went and saw someones tank one time and he had the white starboard in there (only i didn't know anything about it at the time), and i was looking at his tank, and like a total blonde (even though they are just highlights) i asked him, "Wow, how do you keep your sand so flat?!"
yah... classic eva.

classic...

Thank you

Hop on the BB bandwagon my friend! I think that BB bottom tanks look better then sand beds, maybe not at first but after the sandbed fills with garbage definitely. Also, I wouldn't bother putting starboard plastic on the tank bottom, maybe it would make aquascaping easier (less slipery) and protect the bottom from that 20LB piece of live rock you have teetering at the top of your rock pile, but I think it looks cheesy :lol:


Yeah you still get the shimmer, the foam under my tank is black and there is a shimmer.

*edited the quotes for easier reading!

I get the shimmer from the MH in my 37g. Black tank stand under the glass.

I'm with the "go with sand" club. Corallin algae looks scabby after a while, when it gets thick and starts to peel.

Could you go BB at the start until you get everything under control. Algea for example would be alot easier to clean if you didnt have sand. THen when it is all stabalized could you add sand without algea coming back?? Even if you added it slowly.

What kind of algae are you talking about?

The whole point of a BB system is that there is no sand for detritus to get caught in. So, in short, adding sand into your system afterwards would defeat the purpose of a BB. Unless of course, you add it in after you decide that you definately do not like the look of a BB system, or you've decided to keep sand dwelling organisms.

As for the main topic... I'd say it depends on what you want to keep. Obviously, if you want to keep sand dwellers you'd want to have a sandbed. However, IMHO, if you do not plan on keeping sand dwellers, I would just go with a BB system. Advantages include easier cleaning of the tank, the possibility to have a high turnover rate in your tank, etc. My 30g half cube is a BB tank, and I love it. I have a nice turnover rate of about 70-80x (mag9 return, 1xseio 620, 1xseio 820, 1xMJ1200) and I don't have to worry about kicking up a sandstorm, plus the flow is more evenly distributed around the tank... rather than concentrated in the top portion of the tank, so I don't have to worry about blowing the crap out of my corals. The fish also seem to enjoy the high rate of flow as well. A lot of the detritus that is produced in my tank gets kicked up and sucked into my skimmer.

-Rich