deep sand bed or bare bottom????

[underseaworld]

I was wondering what is the pros and cons on deep sand bed and bare bottom.

[greenbean36191]

What size tank are we talking about?

[underseaworld]

300 gal. with 90 gal sump.

[Reefland]

Here is my small take on it:
http://www.reefland.com/rho/0105/medprod2.php

[The R/C Man]

Scott makes some good observations and points about both styles. Personally my 25gallon tank has a sand bed with a large water turn over for the SPS corals with no sand storm problems. It may be due to the relatively small pumps moving less water and having more of them instead say one larger pump moving a ton of water. My new 375 gallon tank has a closed loop system using 1" openings at 1250gph each. TOTW 05-17-05 375 Gallon Tank and Sump Plans These openings are not reduced allowing the water flow to spread out quickly providing more of a current than a stream. This eliminates the sand storm issues and prevents tissue pealing off corals that may be in the waters path. Personally I have not run a tank without a substrate due to its lack of biodiversity. The benifits to having a sand bed seem to outway the cons by a large margin. I believe if you plan accordingly you should be able to have large turn overs without issues.... Good luck....

[SKRIZ]

I have a sand bed and a lot of flow. I am running a tunze 6100, a tunze 6200 and a sequence hammerhead (5800gph). I have zero sandstorm.

I love the critters in the sand. sometimes it is more entertaining watching them than anything else

[Reefland]

In a larger tank, I would absolutely use a sandbed too. For smaller tanks, I like the ease of the bare bottom.

[zhenya]

I've been running DSB in my 75g tank for about 4.5 years now and I wouldn't set up a tank without it, personally. Like greenbean indicated, size does matters in this case and smaller tanks probably would be easier to maintain with bare bottom aproach.

I havve grown diferent species of corals from tiny fragments to colony sizes.Both soft and hard corals alike, I had observed rise and fall of populations of various organisms like Polychates and some Gastropods.
All in all, I can;t imagine myself being reduced to maintain the "bonsai" type of aquarium of few particular species of corals and devoid of any other lifeforms. But, that's just me...

Setting up a reeftank is rather personal and unique opportunity to relate to mother Nature, I think, and there are many ways of doing it, too. Lots of people worry about the water flow and sand bed and how it all will work out, I'd say pick a scheme that you can personally afford in terms of equipment and go at it. I never had much of a flow in my tank other than few power heads and still I was able to grow some reasonably large colonies of Acropora corals. Not that it is a norm to do it but it could be done if you chose proper species and locate them according to their demands. In other words, there are many other variables aside from DSB and bare bottom debate to having a succesfull reeftank.

[The R/C Man]

I wonder about the ease of maintanence in any bare bottom tank large or small. Since there is no biological filtration to break down the detrus it must be siphoned out regularly to maintain water quality (more work). I have never siphoned my sand bed in the 4 years it has been "running".

[underseaworld]

Sounds like I will go with DSB....

[Reefland]

The other option is to ensure that there is enough water movement at the bottom of the tank to keep waste in suspension to be mechanically removed.