Thinking of going bare bottom!

[OceanicCorals-Ian-]

Originally Posted by albert_dao

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!

[Reefer Rob]

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

[banditpowdercoat]

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!

[LeeR]

Originally Posted by FitoPharmer

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

just as fast as on rock

[whatcaneyedo]

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.

[Reefer Rob]

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. 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.

[kien]

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

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.

[mark]

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

[mseepman]

Originally Posted by Reefer Rob

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. 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.

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?

[Borderjumper]

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.