That's only thing to worry. If only Paul had it, he would have arms/muscles like Popeye. You know what I mean.
I don't know who made the silicon for my tank but it has kept it from leaking since my Mother N Law bought me that tank in 1979 or so. It is an odd shaped tank at 100 gallons (I think it is really 90 gallons) it is 6' long and I think 14" high.
As for a bare bottom being able to support as many fish I think of it this way. Think of bacteria (which are plants) as tiny sponges that can soak up either nitrates, ammonia, nitrite or Coca Cola. A sponge can hold a little or a lot of liquid just as bacteria can. When a sponge or bacteria absorb more, like us, they expand. A grain of gravel can contain 9,783,246 individual bacteria (yes I made that number up) but if that number was correct, the same flat area of a piece of glass can hold only 2,783,246 bacteria. (also made up) But whatever the quantity is, the gravel can contain much more bacteria. Now we don't just use one layer of gravel, we use gravel maybe 200 grains thick. Now doing the math in my head, carry the 7 etc I come up with 19,566,492 individual bacteria living on the same footprint as those 2,783,246 bacteria were living on that flat piece of glass. Multiply that by the bottom area of a tank and I can't do the math but there are billions of more bacteria on gravel or sand than a flat piece of glass.
Now you mentioned that all is well unless something dies or there is an accident. Do you know how many accidents and how many times things died in my tank in the 45 years it has been running?
If my tank was bare bottom it would have crashed dozens of times. It didn't because all those skinny bacteria living in my reverse undergravel filter with all that water flowing through it have an enormous appetite and can "absorb" many times their weight in wastes. They, like most bacteria can also double in numbers in a few hours. I wish my tomatoes would grow so fast.
In a bare bottom tank those bacteria are already practically filled with wastes so there is little room for accidents or things dying.
I will give a few examples. Many years ago I kept a very large carpet anemone. The thing took up almost a quarter of the bottom of my tank. We were away, the thing got stuck in an intake and croaked. The tank stunk like a dead cat and you could not see anything in there. I think some fish died (I don't remember) but in a day, the tank cleared up and there was no problem. Another time I had an urchin collection business "Urchin Searchin Enterprise" where I would SCUBA dive for urchins to sell to hobbiests. I had too many for my chilled tank so I put 24 of them in my reef. The next morning they must have noticed the Supermodel I had feeding the tank so they all decided to spawn at once. The water looked like Half and Half. I could have made Pina Colada's out of it. I diatom filtered the water and nothing happened. Try that with a bare bottom.
Many times in those years our power went out and was out for days. Nothing happened.
I think this is the girl who was feeding my tank that day with the urchins.
how about Caitlin? It doesn't matter. They did not have acrylic tanks when I got mine. They also did not have credit cards, computers, cell phones, MP3 players, I pods, Myley Cyrus, E Mail, Face time, cable TV, Lady GaGa, or much of anything except Elvis Presley and the Rockettes.
I live in the red zone, worse then Vietnam.. Can't do nothing about it. But it's for the first time that I caught this disease...
