Gravel or go 'Berlin'? Any advice?

[RedSea_New59]

My aquarium had a leak so had to replace it about 3 months ago. The new tank is a Red Sea reef tank 130D, so about 34 gallons and is set up in a temporary spot in my house till the new flooring gets put in. The fish, inverts and LR are all doing well, but I did not place the sand in the temporary place and instead kept it in a separate airated container. So my question: will this gravel/sand be ok to place back in once I move the aquarium in a few weeks, or is iit ok with just going with no sand (apparenty called the berlin method). Are there major plusses or minuse for going with gravel or going with no gravel. Or should I go with a thin layer or an aregonite? Appreciate any thoughts

 

[DaveK]

You can reuse the sand, but I recommend you stir it up and get it very clean first. A lot of people just replace it, since that's often easier.

Sandbed depth, from none at all to a deep sand bed is mostly personal choice. Unless you have something that needs to dig in, you can easily go with no sandbed, or just enough to cover the bottom. A deep sandbed displaces a lot of water, and you usually don't want that in smaller tanks. Shallow sandbeds are easier to clean. Deep sandbeds should not be disturbed deeper than about 1 inch.

As a note, the berlin method uses live rock, and optionally live sand for the biological filtration. It also usually has a large sump and large powerful skimmer. The sandbed is optional. In this day and age such systems may also contain a refugium, various reactors and other equipment.

 

[nanoreefing4fun]

My choice would be... a thin layer of New aragonite sand or bare bottom

 

[RedSea_New59]

Very helpful info so far! I do have one Orange Spotted Goby that is missing his mouthfuls of sand to munch on, but is getting by on brine shrimp. I think I may go with the thin layer of new aragonite sand as it just looks a bit better asthetically. Would about a 1/2 inch do the trick?

 

[nanoreefing4fun]

yes, though your goby may like a bit more... so here can pile it up

 

[DaveK]

Very helpful info so far! I do have one Orange Spotted Goby that is missing his mouthfuls of sand to munch on, but is getting by on brine shrimp. I think I may go with the thin layer of new aragonite sand as it just looks a bit better asthetically. Would about a 1/2 inch do the trick?

Since you have something that likes to dig into the sand and chomps on it, I'd go with about a 1 1/2 to 2 inch layer.

 

[Nobbygas]

I'd go with the sand. In all my years of scuba diving I've never seen a 'bare bottomed reef' in the wild.

 

[RedSea_New59]

Is there any disadvantage in going 'bare bottomed'....other than esthetics?

 

[DaveK]

As typical, the answer is "it depends". If you ever plan to keep any fish or other livestock that needs to dig in, then you need a sandbed. If your not planning on this then you don't need a sandbed at all.

However, you may want something there in areas you can see, just so it looks good. You could use something like live rock rubble, or fairly course sand.