Frag tank question

[Steve Dillon]

I have a 29 gallon bio cube than has been up for 3 years. I just moved rock, corals and fish to my 125 gallon. My question is should I remove the sand or just build frag rack up above the sand?

 

[CastAway]

Hmmm. Tagging along.

 

[TreyC2010]

I have a 10 that I use for a frag rack and I love it. Only question Id ask is do you want to maintain two tanks? If so then give it a shot.

I read the question again. I left the sand in and built a frag rack and used a little live rock with holes drilled for plugs.

 

[Steve Dillon]

I have a 10 that I use for a frag rack and I love it. Only question Id ask is do you want to maintain two tanks? If so then give it a shot.

I read the question again. I left the sand in and built a frag rack and used a little live rock with holes drilled for plugs.

I have 5 tanks.. I just wondered if there was a benefit to bare bottom..

 

[Steve Dillon]

There will only be two clowns in it.

 

[Reeflogic]

3-year-old sand isn't terribly old but in a small system, not really sure... Phosphate does absorb or become bound to sand, over time. It probably wouldn't hurt anything Steve, especially if you are not experiencing phosphate issues. There are many threads out there that talk about the removal of older sand (over time) and replacing it with new sand to prevent "old tank syndrome."

 

[Reefrookie220]

If you take the sand out, you'll be annoyed very quickly with pulling the rack out to clean everything off the bottom.

If you leave it in make sure to have enough flow around the rack to prevent algae issues.

I'd try for black egg crate, IME the white stuff is an algae magnet.

What it would boil down to for me? Ease of maintenance. Either should be fine. Just my .02

 

[Steve Dillon]

Well im going to set it up with the sand.. will create a thread with results. Wish me luck.. lol

 

[Reefrookie220]

After a re-read, when you say you took your rock what, other than sand is in there for a biofilter?

If your removing your rock and adding clowns be sure to monitor ammonia, with fish and no rock it could be a little risky for frags.

Maybe leave a few lbs, or add rubble to the back?

 

[CastAway]

Interesting. I've always thought that the benefit of bare bottom, be it a large display tank or whatever, was the ease in removing detritus, and thereby limiting nitrates in the end.

But, in a small system, wherein the majority of biological surface area may have been removed (rock), I wonder if the sand might be very useful in terms of a media for bacteria.

 

[Steve Dillon]

I have the refugium with rubble and have matrix under the tray in the refugium. I would never put anything in it till I know its cycled.. and I do fishless cycling

 

[Reeflogic]

Steve, are you using this as a grow out for your own coral frags or as a temporary QT for new frags? If for your own frags, leaving fish and sand won't be a big deal, but if you are using it as a QT for new frags, I'd ditch the sand and the fish. Just my 2 cents

 

[Steve Dillon]

I think im just going to scrub the whole idea and move the fish and rock out of the 12 and put it up.. then ill be down to 4 tanks..

 

[Reeflogic]

But then you will need to up your medication for MTS, which is never good!

 

[Steve Dillon]

MTS?

 

[Reeflogic]

Multi-tank syndrome!!!

 

[Steve Dillon]

Lol..

 

[Steve Dillon]

Please close.