Oh the excitement!

Going with a sandbed eh? I gotta say I don't blame you. I understand the betterness of no sandbed but man I can't get wrap my head around the look, it just looks better with sand. At least when it's all nice and clean anyhow.. :p

Nope, your Ro's busted LOL

Yeah my first tank was BB and I hate the look. I'll do whatever it takes to keep sand. Going to get an eheim sludge extractor for vacuuming.

Dude be patient. You gotta stare at the phot...at the live cam shot for long enough to see any change =)

Any idea were to get one of those sludge extractors?

Cheers,
Vic

No idea actually. I was going to look more seriously when I have things running. Trying not to abuse my wife's kindness too much...prioritizing my purchases lol.

Ok...quick search show big als sells them. If any vendors reading this can get them in please drop a note here.

Ok #2...I read the description there and it says not designed for use with sand. what gives?

Ahhhh hahahahahahaha!! Stellar.

Actually those things remind me a little of a gravel vaccuum I used to clean my brother's 10g fish tank ... in 1977. (I was a lucky kid brother, getting to clean the poop out of that poor goldfish's home. I think he lived around 10 years and ate one of our cats until we finally gave him away to a vet's office where he promptly ate the receptionist. They haven't spoken to us since. The goldfish not my brother. I might be embellishing a little. About my brother that is, not the goldfish. That thing was a monster!) So anyhow, the idea isn't new but you don't see these things a lot so it kinda makes me wonder if they're not really the shizzle OR or the nizzle.

The nicest tank I ever saw with sand was something out of Holland and the guy was all Mr. Moneybags (well, in Dutch though, so it was probably more like Der Hoogen Guilderbaggen {with a heavy phlegmy accentuation on the Hoog, the Guild {pronounced HEELD}} .. ah crap, my tangential meter if off the chart - apparently I'm off topic. What I was trying to say was, the guy budgeted to replace his sand every 6 or 12 months or something like that.

I found since adding a tigertail, and a bunch of conchs though I've always had a more or less clean sandbed without replacement. But I've had to cleverly direct flow away from the bottom because it stirs up too much. One of the reasons I might stick with BB with my next tank is because of this, but, we'll see. Once I have rock in there I might have a change of heart.

Tony I'm Dutch so watch your step sir.

Poking around on RC it seems they can suck quite a bit of crap out of sand as well but the finer particles will get sucked in and the finer detritus will not be removed. I think one of those gobies will do the work for me along with some regular poking of the sand with a baster or something.

I'm Dutch too, so there. You haven't lived until you've heard HOT FOR DOMMUH, ROT KEEND, NOO DING ALL KAPOT.

That's what happend to me. I was all, "clean BB tank, here i come!", until I actually saw all that bare bottom. The rocks looked weird without the sand. Someone on canreef said it best.. the ocean isn't BB.. hehe. But this is all just personal preference, like boxers or briefs. There's not right or wrong answer ( I don't think ).

They do the work alright.. just don't get the type of goby that takes in gobs of sand, then hauls it into the water column and spits a trail of it out from one end of the tank to the other :twised:

Anyway, with careful powerhead direction you can avoid hitting the sandbed and blasting it. This is another reason why I like the tunze 6105 vs an MP40. The MP40 has such a wide wave that it would surely hit my sand bottom, especially since my tank is only 20" tall. I think the mp40 has an 18" diameter flow or something like that. With being able to direct the flow I can blast a narrowish stream down each side of my 6' tank, have it hit the other end of the tank and flow back through the centre of the tank without touching the sandbed. It actually works out quite well for me. 6800+gph and no sandstorms.

That's the first time I have heard that arguement regarding tunze vs mp40... I've got a mp20 running 100% on Reef crest, 6" above my sand bed (in a 24x24x12 tank), and it doesn't stir up a single grain of sand...