BareBottom Club

mattie

mattie

RS Sponsor
well today i lowered the flow...because things kept getting knocked over. fish in there is yellow tang...it didn't mind the flow..much...but the frags would fall over on to others and would get burned so i lowered the flow to about 25-30x flow.. but it was cool how clean the tank became....
high flow is easy with 2 seio's and 3 maxijet's......and barebottom makes it possible. i took out the seio's for now....
 
bourganaes

bourganaes

Member
I must be a little confused- doesn't the dsb aid in the bio-filtration in a reef tank? Are there any drawbacks? I am just fixing to restart my tank and now you guys have me wondering what to do.
 
Witfull

Witfull

Well-Known Member
a sand fight,,,lol

there are several different ways to set up a reef. DSB, SSB, BB with or without starboard. each has advantages and disadvantages. the choice is up to you, choose what you want and know what it requires and do the maintainence that it needs.
 
bourganaes

bourganaes

Member
I guess I was wanting to find out the hows and whys- any suggested reading?




Pro 27:17 Iron sharpeneth iron; so a man sharpeneth the countenance of his friend.
 
livingreef2004

livingreef2004

Active Member
hi everybody im getting close to getting all my equipment for my first bb tank, and i would like to run the setup by everybody to get some feedback. this might be kinda long i was going to start a seperate thread but this seemed to be a better place to get opinions

the setup is going to be for sps zoas some choice lps like blastos and acans my 2 clowns and my sixline wrasse. the tank is a 33 gallon acrylic measurements are 30X16X16
lighting is a 24 inch 4 bulb t5ho tek fixture
im going to run a closed loop consisting of a mag 18 that goes into a red sea ocean clear filter with the pleated micron filter and carbon from the canister the line will split and go into 2 scwd's and then come back into the tank by way of 4 returns
i am buying a urchin skimmer from a very patient member of rs :) and i have a 20 gallon us aquatics sump but i am going to try to run thesystem without a skimmer and sump but they are going to be there for backup
my thinking is that a system of this size should not need the skimmer since it will be bare bottom and i will be doing weekly water changes
so in a nutshell thats it let me have it any input is apreciated from the barebottom club lol
 
Woodstock

Woodstock

The Wand Geek was here. ;)
RS STAFF
With my feeding regimen and stocking levels, I wouldn't dream of going without a skimmer. It really all depends on your set up, no 2 reefs are alike. Try it without a sump/skimmer keeping an eye on your water parameters. Like you said, they are there as a back up incase you need them :) Keep us posted~
 
S

swolfe

New Member
I lost my sandbed when I moved recently, so had to go bare bottom. I thought I would hate it, but I really like it. Other than being easier to clean, I can stick my head under the stand and look up to another dimension of my tank! I'm sticking with BB!
 
Witfull

Witfull

Well-Known Member
swolfe said:
I I can stick my head under the stand and look up to another dimension of my tank!
Click to expand...
i love that too...diterus check,,and free lighting for the cabinet to boot~~
 
Woodstock

Woodstock

The Wand Geek was here. ;)
RS STAFF
swolfe said:
...... I can stick my head under the stand and look up to another dimension of my tank! .......
Click to expand...

LOL~ I had to read that sentence a few times... I kept seeing "I can stick my head under the SAND..." LOL!! ...... I think i've had too much milk to drink :rolleyes:
 
C

christyf5

New Member
I went BB in May, while I don't really like the look it certainly has done wonders for my tank. Previously I had a 3 yr old coarse DSB but a problem with dinoflagellates made me think perhaps the sandbed was the problem so I switched it out for a SS of sugar sand in 2004. The sugar sand lasted a year and so did the dinoflagellates. Since the sandbed was my last "fix" I yarded it out (peeyew!) and reluctantly went barebottom.

I agree with whoever made the comment about the rock being cooked in the tank. I don't think I have ever seen so much detritus coming off the rock before. If thats what it was doing while I had a sandbed its no wonder my tank was having problems.

I did end up adding a small amount of coarse sand to the back part of the tank. I have a wrasse that was a bit lost without the sandbed to sleep in and he kept wedging himself into the rocks. He was looking pretty ratty and had a large lesion on his operculum that was bordering on gills sticking out. Since adding the "mini" sandbed he has healed almost completely. :D

Christy :)
 
S

SaltyTank

Member
Tis a tad drafty, but it's growing on me. :p

I still have just a dusting of sand on top of my starbord, a thin veil you might say, covering a small portion of my bottom, but I do belive that will be gone with the wind very shortly :thumbup:

-dave
 
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