Bare bottom tank questions

Smitty said:
I prefer a sand bed...but it's best to keep it shallow(1-2inches), to keep it easily maintained. Deeper sand beds can cause problems if not taken care of correctly. Bare bottoms look unrealistic and unnatural, and are primarily beneficial in sps dominated tanks.
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My sentiments exactly. nothing beats the look of a sandbed. if it is shallow (less than 2" deep) it is very easy to keep clean by using a syphon when you do your water changes.
Ultimately it is a personal preference. if you don't care about the look of BB then run with that :)

Whatever you do, don't do crushed coral !!!
 
A lot of lfs try to sell us crushed coral to use as a substrate in our marine tanks. It's not good as it acts as giant nitrate factory and really causes some long term issues with your tanks health. You would be far better served if you would use sand or even a bare bottom.

There are several reasons that it causes problems like, it catches all the detritus in your tank, food, feces, dead plants etc. It's more or less like having a kitchen sponge in the bottom of your tank that you never change! Your infaunal critters be they fish,inverts etc. have a very difficult time in moving through it and they can't get to the waste material to eat it.

It also won't compact enough to form an anaerobic area to allow denitrification and the ultimate removal of waste as atmospheric nitrogen. In short it's not a good idea to add to marine tanks in quantity.

IME it probably causes more people to leave the hobby than any other reason!

Hopefully other members will post their experiences to assist new hobbiest.
 
Crushed coral IMO looks ugly and in my experience harder to clean


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Just old school. Back in the day it was used to buffer the water. Now we use the correct rock and salt mixes to achieve the higher ph. The issue with crush coral is the ability to keep it clean and some of your livestock will not like it. Lots of people moved the crushed coral to reactors. To each their own. There really is no 1 way to set up at tank.
 
+1 everybody...it Will cause high nitrate issues down the road, especially if you're keeping puffers and eels(who are both messy eaters). The food particles and leftovers will go beneath the crushed coral and start to rot, which will quickly spike your levels and then ultimately lead to many algae problems that could take years to eliminate.
 
Smitty said:
+1 everybody...it Will cause high nitrate issues down the road, especially if you're keeping puffers and eels(who are both messy eaters). The food particles and leftovers will go beneath the crushed coral and start to rot, which will quickly spike your levels and then ultimately lead to many algae problems that could take years to eliminate.
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I think that's why my tank was overrun by hair algae because I had sand and crushed coral :-(



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KeishaKornbread said:
A lot of lfs try to sell us crushed coral to use as a substrate in our marine tanks. It's not good as it acts as giant nitrate factory and really causes some long term issues with your tanks health. You would be far better served if you would use sand or even a bare bottom.

There are several reasons that it causes problems like, it catches all the detritus in your tank, food, feces, dead plants etc. It's more or less like having a kitchen sponge in the bottom of your tank that you never change! Your infaunal critters be they fish,inverts etc. have a very difficult time in moving through it and they can't get to the waste material to eat it.

It also won't compact enough to form an anaerobic area to allow denitrification and the ultimate removal of waste as atmospheric nitrogen. In short it's not a good idea to add to marine tanks in quantity.

IME it probably causes more people to leave the hobby than any other reason!

Hopefully other members will post their experiences to assist new hobbiest.
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:dito:
 
Man thanks everyone for the info, I'm glad I found this sight because being new to the hobby I have already learned so much from just you guys
 
EricTheRed said:
My sentiments exactly. nothing beats the look of a sandbed. if it is shallow (less than 2" deep) it is very easy to keep clean by using a syphon when you do your water changes.
Ultimately it is a personal preference. if you don't care about the look of BB then run with that :)

Whatever you do, don't do crushed coral !!!
Click to expand...

Exactly my mind ....
 
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