Silicone sand to bottom glass
 

Hey everybody,

Has anyone ever tried to silicone a thin layer of sugar sand to the bottom glass to prevent it from blowing around (SPS tank)? Would that much silicone leach anything into the water?

Any thoughts?

I believe Chin Lee used an epoxy to do just what your talking about.

You may as well just go bare bottom. If you glue sand to the bottom it will just get covered with Coraline and will look the same anyway.

wouldn't do it again
 

I did it with 2part epoxy and i wouldn't do it again. I'll leave it at that until i have more time to write more about it

thanks for the replies. I have never been able to grow enough coraline to cover the bottom. I was also hoping that the sand would reflect some light to the undersides of the sps. Chin Lee, thanks for responding; I would like to hear more about your experiences with epoxy and your opinion on using silicone instead.

I had thought about doing that at one time but when I really started to think about it I changed my mind.
If you think about it the sand you silicone on will only be nice and white for a very short while then it is either going to:

- get covered in coraline
- be a good place for crude to stick to as it settles to the bottom of the tank
- be a great foothold for hair and other algea to get a good grip on
- be harder to scrape crap off of than a flat smooth surface

I don't think you will be able to create the austetics you are going for this way so IMO you should either go with a sand bed (deep or shallow) or bare bottom.

Good point Ruth, I was also concerned about the algae issues as the tank matures.

Bill, I used silicone & 2mm sizes aragonite on a sheet of plexi-glass that fit into my 90g cube. I still have pics if your interested by the way. It looked good at first but I would also not do it again.

Even the small layer of gravel trapped detritus, but most of all, made it harder to siphon clean. I prefer just bare glass now or starboard of some type. I also have some pics of a seasoned bare bottomed tank with great looking coralline growing on it. It seems to be the first place its growing in my new 45 cube also.