Thinking of going bare bottom!

[Reefer Rob]

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 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

[Leah]

hope you are under the age of 5

[OceanicCorals-Ian-]

Originally Posted by Reefer Rob

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 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

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........

[FitoPharmer]

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!

[Reefer Rob]

Originally Posted by Leah

hope you are under the age of 5

My wife says I act it sometimes

[mark]

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

[LeeR]

raw marble tile

[FitoPharmer]

Originally Posted by MacheteAvenue

raw marble tile

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

[Skimmerking]

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

[OceanicCorals-Ian-]

Originally Posted by asmodeus

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.