Are you a bare bottom or sand bed reefer?

[Bruce Burnett]

Sand bed. Was BB on my 300 gallon but every other tank is sand. With enough conch and assortment of snails, diamond goby sand stays pretty clean looking. Sand just looks better.

 

[Hans-Werner]

I very much dislike the look of the glass pane but I think a hard bottom is much more natural and also more convenient. The reefs themselves have very little sand but mainly hard bottom.

Last time I wanted an calcareous tuff from a stonemason but unfortunately only got an volcanic tuff and thought I will give it a try. Initially it worked really bad, lots of cyanobacteria, too much trace minerals, but now, after 4 years, it seems to have found its balance.

I know that calcareous tuff works well from former tanks. Travertine works just as well. I have used travertine slabs in test setups. At last Interzoo fair I met Julian Sprung, like usually at Interzoos, and he presented oolitic rock slabs which really look wonderful (I have a sample on my desk while writing this ) . With such material you have a natural looking hard bottom instead of a glass pane, a phosphate buffering effect, and you can even combine it with sand patches without any problems. You can create a mosaic of sand patches and hard bottom. Rock slabs also protect the glass bottom from hits.

 

[surcalation]

Really need to update my project thread as that's BB

 

[joefishtank]

I like bare tanks because they're easier to maintain and I don't mind the sight of algae. My reef tank is bare but I put grow out plates under half the tank for my zoanthids. I also put a flat rock with holds drilled into it to act as a frag rock. I voted for other because I start my tanks bare but I'll add substrate if it serves a purpose.

 

[Paul B]

I am neither sand nor BB. I set up my tank a half century ago using gravel and a reverse undergravel filter and never looked back.

I feel BB may be aesthetic pleasing to some people, but not to fish as it offers them nothing to eat. Sand is a little better but oxygen doesn't penetrate to far into it. Gravel allows life to live all the way through the 2 or 3" to the glass and life starts as bacteria then progresses to copepods, worms, amphipods etc which is the food chain fish in the sea depend on.

It's for health and not for looks. When I set my tank up, I wanted it to last forever. IMO of course.

 

[UK softy bloke]

Just wondering this morning about the bare bottom versus sand bed debate.

Unless I’ve missed it, I haven’t seen that much debate as of late. I see sand beds all the time but not many bare bottom tanks.

Are you a bare bottom or sand bed reefer?

image via @Roberto Denadai

I think if you have a tank with a couple of bommies or islands or with minimal rock contact with the base of the tank then sand looks great and is fairly easy to maintain. If on the other hand you have a tank like mine with a low level scape covering most of the base what's the point of sand.

 

[ScubaFish802]

I have always had a sand bed in my tanks but I've seen more and more bare bottoms recently. I love wrasses so it would be hard for me to have a tank without sand but I have thought about setting up an SPS dominate tank in the future and by having it barebottom you can really turn up the flow.

I have been following a fellow hobbyist on Instagram and watched his tank grow and turning a masterpiece. I can't find him on Reef2Reef but his Instagram is saarbrooklyn.reef (Peter Hilt). His bare bottom tank is spectacular.

I can't imagine the work that goes into keeping every surface so clean, I imagine coralline, etc.. must grow on all 5 panels, I have a hard enough time doing just the front and the two sides on a regular basis

 

[swampcruiser]

I like the look of barebottom and going for flow. I was going this route for my new build but I like others I like wrasses and gobies too much. Special grade it will be.

 

[oldschoolnewventure]

Just wondering this morning about the bare bottom versus sand bed debate.

Unless I’ve missed it, I haven’t seen that much debate as of late. I see sand beds all the time but not many bare bottom tanks.

Are you a bare bottom or sand bed reefer?

image via @Roberto Denadai

I’ve always been Sandbed based on the bio diversity and the many organisms that will live in your sand bed

 

[1ocean]

Have a 300 gallon. Mostly bare bottom except the far right back corner have 20 pounds of sand for the wrasses..

 

[HawaiiTime]

Just wondering this morning about the bare bottom versus sand bed debate.

Unless I’ve missed it, I haven’t seen that much debate as of late. I see sand beds all the time but not many bare bottom tanks.

Are you a bare bottom or sand bed reefer?

image via @Roberto Denadai

Once I switched to BB I have never looked back!The easy clean aspect is great but it has another great benefit too. Light that gets through to my refugium below. It is enough to keep my feather and long leafed algae growing for my glass shrimp. Softies like mushrooms and Kenya trees survive down there too as the shrimp clean the rocks.

HawaiiTime

 

[thatmanMIKEson]

Been sand forever but I don't think I will ever go back, a bare bottom to me is like the top of a reef, no sand there.

#BB-4Life

 

[fishrambo]

What is everyone using to supplement for bio-filtration that is running bare bottom tank?

 

[tc760]

I'm running a 180g bare bottom with white starboard. Now when I say bare bottom I mean no sand. But I have very little "bare bottom" there is a large amount of zoa's, cyphastrea, leptoseris covering much of the bottom of the tank.

 

[tc760]

What is everyone using to supplement for bio-filtration that is running bare bottom tank?

I have a little extra live rock in my sump for my macro algae to hold onto but other than that it's just the rock in the display. No need for supplementing biofiltration.

 

[Mordkanin]

I have a Divided Leopard Wrasse and a Melanurus Wrasse.

They'd be very unhappy if it was bare bottom.

 

[fishrambo]

I have a little extra live rock in my sump for my macro algae to hold onto but other than that it's just the rock in the display. No need for supplementing biofiltration.

Kool thanks

 

[GDiaz]

I have always had a sand bed in my tanks but I've seen more and more bare bottoms recently. I love wrasses so it would be hard for me to have a tank without sand but I have thought about setting up an SPS dominate tank in the future and by having it barebottom you can really turn up the flow.

I have been following a fellow hobbyist on Instagram and watched his tank grow and turning a masterpiece. I can't find him on Reef2Reef but his Instagram is saarbrooklyn.reef (Peter Hilt). His bare bottom tank is spectacular.

#goals That’s a nice bare bottom for sure.

 

[Steven Garland]

I really like them both. For me it really determines what I am trying to do with the tank and what I am trying to keep.

Right now I am running sand,but I will be keeping all sps:

 

[vahegan]

I had sand in all the reef tanks I had during the period of about 10 years. I sort of hated the look of BB tanks. And I have been fighting with high phosphates all this time. Then, my friends convinced me to try BB some 2 years ago: my phosphates and nitrates dropped to undetectable levels (using Hanna Hi713 for phosphate and HI782 for nitrate) within a few months after this. I even tried dosing significant amounts of nitrates, a few PPM added on a daily basis, but it stays undetectable, unless I dump the whole daily dose in one go. As for the looks, I have a few acans on the bottom, and I am gradually growing different zoas to fill the space inbetween. It does not look glassy and shiny and they will soon fill all the empty spaces on the bottom glass.