Thinking of going bare bottom!
 

Well more of a zoanthid bottom actually.

After seeing Ian from Oceanic's tank I now have "flow envy". Right now I have a thin layer of sand for "aesthetics", and there's no way I can get that kind of flow without blasting sand everywhere.

So for all the bare bottoms out there it's time to expose your self :surprise: Let see what you've done in place of sand.

By the way, I have Goggle... and know all the pros and cons. I don't want that kind of discussion. It tends to get a little heated for me :wink:

:redface: hope you are under the age of 5 :wink:

I will always push bare bottom for functionality and ULNS but I do like the look of a sand bottom on some tanks. It would be impossible to have the flow I currently have if I were to have substrate........

:mrgreen:

I use tumbled marble flooring tiles for my bare bottom. They are turning out to be way better then sand! I am planning on having a Zoa garden bottom as well. I'm planning to try and have a single species per tile. Hopefully it will fill out into a cool checker board pattern. The plus side to the tiles is they are turning out to be a neat version of nutrient export. If a tile gets covered in a little too much algae it can be easily removed from the tank scraped, scrubbed, and washed before returning it. Or you can buy some spares and just replace with new ones and bleach the old ones. The tiles do not seem to grown any additional nuisance algae either. substrate and flow!

My wife says I act it sometimes :redface:

if you go BB it doesn't stay that way for long due coralline algae growth. I finally got some zoas growing on the bottom of mine but seems they do prefer growing on rubble. Did have a fair bit of monti plate growing directly on the bottom that was neat but lost in my SPS crash.

Here's a link to a Canreef thread showing a GSP bottomed display

http://i324.photobucket.com/albums/k...DSC_0041-1.jpg raw marble tile

awesome! do you find corals grow faster on the marble tiles?

BB was great for me lots of flow the snails if they fell it was easier for them toget back on there way too. With sand you loose the wrasses that I love, but there is always a down side. Just remember you will get coraline Algae growning on the bottom and that means the CAL and ALk levels will increase alot too.

Coraline algae consumes huge CAL and ALK demands

I agree with the Coraline algae as it has all but completely covered the floor of my tank; however, I also have three Wrasses for over 2 years and they are very happy with their surroundings. Wrasses will get used to no sand and eventually wedge themselves into the rocks at night.

I have a Leopard wrasse in my tank with a BB. At night he just hovers on the bottom near the clown fish normally. I was surprised he does not go into the rock work more often. He is a very friendly fish thought.

What about Tiger Tail cucs? I'm thinking they'll have to go... if I can get them out.

really i have a leoprad and a flasher wrasse and 2 tiger tails weird about the wrasses

Have to go, they will starve long term.......

yeah no sandbed was totally the way to go for me. The bottom of my tank is covered with various coralline and other algae and piles of detritus accumulate in low flow areas which I have to siphon out on a regular basis.

I definitely think the tiger tail cucs will have to go, I remember when I had a sandbed they were always buried and constantly tunneling through the sand. I don't think they would react well, or be as well fed without a sandbed.

Did you paint the bottom of the tank or just leave it clear

Exactly how is works for me, would not go back to sand.

Don't bother, it will cover with Coraline fairly quickly....

what about the flow? maybe you can describe it to those of us out of town.:mrgreen:

I've often thought that perhaps the starboard option was the way to go (although I have no idea where to get it around here) as I miss the reflection of the white sand that really brightens up the tank but again, once it covers with coralline and various other algaes, the effect pretty much is lost and I feel its a bit of a waste.

Darn, I have to work till 5:00. I'm getting sooo excited about this. Can't wait to point my closed loop nozzles anywhere I want!

Planning on mounting a Maxijet mod on a Wavy Sea centered on the back wall. Something that would now make a huge sand pile.

Oceanic - I have been looking around for pictures of your tank but I can't find them can you point me in the right direction

150 G tank

Running

1- MP40
2- Tunze 6125's
1- Wavbox
1-Maximod 1200
1-Mag 9 return

= 13,640 GPH flow...... water is really moving in the tank...

I will upload a couple new pictures tonight! Everything grows so fast the older pictures won't do it justice.

Yup, and your corals were so happy they were dancin' :biggrin:

Rob,

Don't remove all the sand at once! You are essentially removing a large portion of your bacterial colonization. If you remove it all at once you may cause unwanted issues, ie RTN-STN due to increases in Nitrate and Phosphate. You also need to consider adding more rock to your sump/refugium in order to replace the medium that the bacteria just lost.

I run zeovit and biopellets so these two items make up for a lack of substrate...

Ian

My sand is just a skiff really, barely covers the bottom. Nutrients are very low, pretty sure I won't notice it.

Thinking about the Bio-pellets, been reading about them on RC... one thing at a time

Okay,

Just making sure!

I'm really looking forward to seeing some pictures of your tank Ian. I'm planning a new tank and my two current tanks each have about 1 1/2" of sand. I think I would miss it a lot if it was gone but love the idea of easy detrius removal and big flow without sandstorms.

Pfft, Ian's tank has too many colors in it. I disapprove. Not enough brown. More brown plz.

LMAO, I do have one brown colony to give away but it is about the size or bigger than a basket ball! Does have blue tips though!

Yup, I think we should ban Ian's tank from the board... he's going to make the rest of us look bad! :razz:

I just took 15g of sand out of my 150 yesterday, to move it and redo the floor. I don't think I will put any back in. My checkerboard wrasse will be ****ed. But I call him Wr******* cause he just covers everyting with sand to tick me off LOL so paybacks HA!

just as fast as on rock

Its mostly personal preference I guess. I'm a sand person, always have been always will be. I tried BB in my frag tank for a few months but I didnt like even in there it so I put back a very fine layer.

Ya, I like the look of sand, but I have to have the flow, and my Wife's been asking me to go bare bottom for a long time. :surprise: The 2 Dart pumps I have for circulation worked OK while my corals were small, but with everything filling in they're just not cutting it.

Seeing the amount of flow in Ian's tank made me re-evaluate my current setup. I noticed that the flow from my return pumps was no longer making it to the center of the tank, and the polyps were weren't moving like they used to.

It's time to make some changes. I'm pretty sure if I just let my tank keep growing in without adding flow it's heading for a major crash.

My bottom is bare right now! Oh wait.. was that TMI ?? :lol:

Actually, I am a sand person too. I tried bare bottom for a period of time in my previous 90 gallon and loved it. However, when I set up my new 150 I found all that bottom glass lacking something so I put in a sprinkling of sand. I like the look of both, but in my current tank I just preferred having sand.

If you have the correct configuration with the tank, aquascaping, flow equipment, etc, you can maintain a decent amount of flow without blasting the sand bottom. For example, powerheads like the vortech have a nice gentle wide area of flow which is great for corals and won't blast your sandbed. There are lots of great SPS rich tanks out there with sand bottoms. I wouldn't personally suggest that every SPS tank needs super amounts of flow. Good quality flow is key, not necessarily lots of flow. It just happens that a lot of times to achieve the proper quality of flow, cranking up the amount of flow follows, but is not always necessary.

Start of the zoas on the BB (one on the left just pulled out fr under the LR so looking sad)

http://i67.photobucket.com/albums/h3...5/P1270019.jpg

Rob I looked around but couldn't find a FTS of your tank....want to include it so we see what you're going from before you pull the sand?

I go bare bottom too.
I hate the look tho, so I have 2 tanks with the bottom covered in flat shelf rock in kinda a horse shoe pattern with the middle left open for crud to blow to, and in the third tank I lined the bottom with rics.

http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y24...a/IMG_0218.jpg