bare bottom vs live sand
 

im thinking of going bare bottom is there any preparation i have to worry about or do i just pull everything out ( fish, corals, liverock) remove the sand and put it together again? gettin sick of the sand always blowing around and getting all over my corals lol.

Use a vacuum tube and suck a little out at a time, maybe 1/3 at a time. If you remove it all at once you will get a high ammonia spike and kill everything.

When I moved I sort of went direct DSB to BB with my 75g (DSB in the old house, ~2 hours later tank set back up in the new place without the sand). Probably used over 50g of new water though.

If I was to siphon out bit at a time would think going top to bottom in a section would be better than a 1/3 off the top.

BB here also.
I would support and second top to bottom in one section method rather then exposing laers of different bacteria that are not used to be exposed anyway.
Small square every water change is good way to get rid of the sand.

Bare bottom is the only way to go, I would never go back if I had to choose. This is of course my personal opinion. :biggrin:

hmm i have run both bb and dsb. personally the bb is nice for the clean look and the easy to maintain but the DSB looks really nice and always has the nice look if you keep it clean personally i like both :)

anyone have pics of their BB tanks?

doesn't stay truly BB long (coralline)

http://i67.photobucket.com/albums/h3...5/P9230008.jpg

http://i67.photobucket.com/albums/h3...5/P9230011.jpg

looks great w/ the coarlline bottom--do you have to clean/siphon it often?

About all I'll do is siphon the display (and sump and fuge) as part of the monthly water change.

will a sand sifting star fish be alright without the sand? i would think all its food source would still be there if not i might need to find him a new home.

Since I moved my tank on the weekend, and having no sand currently.. I've found it appealing going bare bottom for a while... really like the look of the coraline covered bottom :)

I'm pro BB, but my current tank I caved to pressure and added a bit of sand. Although it does look nice, I wish I hadn't added it. Unfortunately, the rock is perched on the sand, so siphoning it out might give me a cave in!