First time salt questions

[StirCrazy]

Originally Posted by reeferaddict

[. Lots of people doing SPS are going bare bottom to avoid sand storms due to the high flow of their systems. Sandbeds also tend to be an area where algae grows easily especially if there is low flow.

I would go bare bottom on any tank weather it was for softies or sps, the reason isn't beacvuse of sand storms it is because we can not properly run a DSB and they fail in time (some people sooner than others) also the other mail reason is that you need random current through out the tank in order to keep "crap" suspended for removal by your skimmer. a sand bed forces you to keep flow in the bottom 1/3 of the tank low allowing junk to build up in the sand bed. also there is more than enud denitrafacation in the live rock to handle the loads in a properly set up tank.

the DSB was a band wagon about 4 years ago and sence has been falling out of favor for the last two years due to the requirments of organisms required to make it sucessfull. acording to Dr. ron who was the original pusher of the DSB, we can only keep about 10% of the critters required to make them work, and that they load up with heavy metals and such and can cause problems down the road. from my own experiance and that of others as the mature they cause algae problems.

as for lighting you can put thoes on no problem, softies like light to I would even go as far as to say skip the PC lighting and run a VHO or two of actinic for color ballance.


Steve