Sand vs no sand?

[albert_dao]

Originally Posted by kien

My thought is that I have never seen a bare bottom ocean. Or sea for that matter. Or lake even. Or river.

I've never seen a river or ocean.. or a lake or a sea contained by five glass panels :P

[mark]

6line for years with BB but can't keep the shrimp/goby pair

[reefwars]

BB here , loving it

If I were to do a fish only though I'd prob go sand but reef and I'm BB

[kien]

Originally Posted by albert_dao

I've never seen a river or ocean.. or a lake or a sea contained by five glass panels :P

You've obviously never seen my tank then.

[Reefer Rob]

You have sand if you like the look of sand. What other people think shouldn't matter.

But since you asked. Having a bare bottom is very liberating There's no way I'd have the flow patterns that I have in my tank with sand.

[jordsyke]

I have very little sand in my tank in the front, Lots of flow so it blows around a lot . But the back part of my tank is bare bottom and I like that I do not have to get into those hard to reach spots to maintain it. I have a large rainbow wrasse that dug himself in at night in his previous tank, but because of my small sandbed just hides in a rock at night now, happy as can be.

[Coral Hoarder]

Was thinking about Cori's wrass one of my favorite fish and I know not all sleep in sand just the pretty ones Do lol

[banditpowdercoat]

Just got rid of all my sand. Had 2" initially for like 3 years. Moved tank, went almost BB. Maybe 1/2" But was mix with some really fine sand, for another 3 years. Yesterday had tank emergency. Bottom bulkhead leaking. Complete drain. I removed ALL my sand. One corner, and under the rocks was soo full of detritus, it was like over 2" thick in locations. Total dead flow spots I know. But hard to get flow under the rocks. And impossible to siphon. Now I want sand again, I like the looks. Wish Crushed Coral wasn't such a Nitrate grabber and easier to clean too. My CUC had pretty much dissapeared and I never noticed for quite a while. Can't seem to keep Inverts well either lately.
My 150g is moderate stocked, Yellow, Hippo, Naso Tangs, Coral Beauty, Foxface and 2 clowns. Clam seem's Happy, have a RBTA that shriveled up, and seems to not like light. Lights are low tho, and he is slowly expanding more, but moves up and down the rocks daily.
My WC intervals are like 6 weeks due to my work schedules etc. Tank is left fully automated while I am in camp for 3 weeks at a time...

Thoughts on my getting more sand? What more CUC should I get? Had 2 Brittle stars and 2 Serpent stars, But only 1 Brittle star is left too

[hfp75]

Sand looks good and if healthy is good for the tank.

By healthy I mean, sand is a bit of its own separate world in a tank. It can help with filtration. A healthy sand bed will have a bunch of snails and a few sand stars (depending on tank size). The key to a healthy sand bed is that it is being turned over frequently. A stagnant sand bed is bad news. If your able to maintain it then go for it!!!

If you are going to forget all about it and let it become a nitrate / detritus sponge then it's bad news.

When your fish die off you notice within a day or so, because you can see it. What's alive in the sand you can't see so you need to be very observant!!!

Also remember that when you clean your tank you should vacuum or siphon off/out the sand and take out a bunch each time, wash it and dump it back in..... just helps keep the brown sludge that can accumulate down.

[Leach29]

Thank you everyone for your replies.

Great to hear everyone's views, and thoughts.

Maintenance is going to be an issue for me, I was hoping to keep it as simple as possible. I am having it in wall with a fish room and my space is limited being able to syphon some spots due to framing ect. I will take pics and show everyone when I get my build thread going. It concerns me that I will have many dead spots.

If I have run refugium that would help with the water quality ?