sand or no sand?

[zukinjim]

Right now i have no sand in my reef tank.I have realy come to like the look of the sand.Is it better to have a sand base?and do you need to clean the sand

 

[Anonymous]

It kind of depends. What sort of coral are you keeping? If you have an SPS-dominated tank, it might be better to stick with a bare-bottomed tank. It means you can very turbulent water circulation without worrying about creating a sandstorm. It also means you will have fewer worries about nutrient spikes. Deep sand beds in particular have a useful function as a biological filter, processing nitrates just like live rock does, but they can also leach excess nutrients back into the water, particularly if the sand bed is disturbed.

On the other hand, if your tank is a mixture of relatively hardy corals (LPS, softies, maybe one or two relatively hardy SPS), a sand bed shouldn't cause too many problems, particularly if you avoid the usual traps of overfeeding and overstocking and ensure good water circulation. Plus a sand bed can have useful function as a buffer, stopping too rapid swings in ph if it's an aragonite based.

Helpful article on DSBs (Deep sand beds) here.

http://forum.marinedepot.com/Topic59558-13-1.aspx

 

[Anonymous]

I have had everything from bare bottom to a deep sand bed. I don't really like the looks of a bare bottom. A deep sand bed takes a lot of sand and has the potential to crash. We just set up a new 230 gallon tank. Once the rock has had a chance to cook we are going to add a shallow sand bed of 2 or less inches.

 

[EVO]

I just got done tearing down the entire tank and setting it up again. Seems like I had to do this about two years ago. Reason is that the sand bed gets to be full of crap after while, then you get cyano bacteria then you get hair algae, then fish get ick. Well took me total of two days, cleaned out the sand bed, got all the fish in chemo in basement tank for two weeks. Look good again, like new and the corals are happy. Every time this happens I start dreaming about making BB tank with a bed of acrylic nails to hold up the reef so the water can just flow under and push all the poo into the overflow and into the sock filter... maybe next time.

 

[Brian5000]

After trying a couple different things, I'm fan of my thin sand bed (just enough to cover the bottom). Not enough to do anything biologically, just asthetic. I sweep it up as my water change and wash it out.

I think everyone that goes the bare bottom route loves it for the ease and utility. It's a matter of what you like, what you want, and what looks good to you.
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[Anonymous]

There are a couple reefers here that have faux sand beds,

Glued sand to starboard, put that under the rocks.

IIRC, looked pretty good...

 

[pwj1286]

I seen many of DSB SPS dom tanks with awesome success. However, those are few and far between, but I really cannot attribute the success to DSB or BB.

There are too many bad examples of both methods to make an honest opinion about it, because 90% of success comes from husbandry!!!


I would like to try BB because it "makes sense" but I would also like to incorporate a remote DSB for the sake of the potential benefits it offers. This way I don't think you could go wrong!


Cheers!
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gremlin