I'm Thinking about DSB removal

[srfmon]

Any disadvantages to this? I want more FLOW, w/o creating a sand storm. The tank is sps & clams w/ some zoanthids.
Should I just relocate the sand to the fuge? Or is this a bad idea to remove a functional 4+ year old DSB?

[Reefland]

I am happy wth our decision to remove the DSB and go bare-bottom when we renovated our tank. The ability to increase the flow in the tank without any worry of blowing sand, or in our case a powerhead falling is great.

I do however think that the DSB has huge advantages over the maitenance required. When we had a DSB we just did routine water changes without any real need to "clean" the tank. Now that we are running a bare-bottom, the need for more frequent water changes is very apparent with the increased detritus build ups. A couple of hours before I do water changes I use a pump to blow off all the rock work, let it settle and then siphon out all the detritus; about every 2 weeks this is necessary.

For me, if I had a very large tank, I would go back to a DSB but for our little 75 gallon, the bare-bottom was a great choice.

[srfmon]

Hmmm, increasing the water changes & more maintenance? That's not really what I want. I was thinking it would be no additional effort once the DSB is removed. I'm glad I get to hear the other side of it before I scoop up any sand.
Are there any other cons to DSB removal?

[Ninong]

Are there any other cons to DSB removal?

I wonder how you intend to go about this, assuming that you do decide to do it? Are you going to remove all of the livestock and live rock from your tank to a temporary holding tank while you remove the 4-yr-old DSB?

I don't think it would be safe to do it any other way.

[srfmon]

I wonder how you intend to go about this, assuming that you do decide to do it? Are you going to remove all of the livestock and live rock from your tank to a temporary holding tank while you remove the 4-yr-old DSB?

I don't think it would be safe to do it any other way.

Yeah, that was the idea anyway. As a bonus there is a hippo that needs to be moved to my FO tank.
Right now I'm leaning towards a 2" sandbed (more room for sps growth).

[Ninong]

Yeah, that was the idea anyway. As a bonus there is a hippo that needs to be moved to my FO tank.
Right now I'm leaning towards a 2" sandbed (more room for sps growth).

If you decide to remove your existing sand bed and start over with a new shallower sand bed, I would save some of the sand from the top 1" layer of the old sand bed to seed the new sand bed and discard the rest.

[Reefland]

Keep in mind that there is little to no advantage to using a sand bed less than 3" other than aesthetic appeal and then your still faced with the challenge of maximizing random flow without causing a mess.