No more sand for me!

[fidojoe]

Long story short... sort of
My tank sprung a leak somewhere on the back side, dunno where, I found it on sunday when I noticed my carpet was damp. So I took everything down, cleaned the tank out, and took the stand apart in attempt to do a detailed cleaning, and found out the tank had leaked for longer than I orginally thought when I had to peel the stand base off my carpet, cause it was rotted. Luckily Petsmart has a guarentee on their tanks, and they also replaced my stand for me since I bought it there, for free.

Sooo, I reset the tank, minus the algae causing sand that made my tank smell like funk.

I have a few ??'s for those who have gone BB-

I have a yellow watchman goby and a scooter blenny, will they have to go, or can they live without sand?

I'm pretty sure my conch's and nassarius snails will have to go, but what about my cerith snails, they do an awesome job on the glass?

I have been looking at the Rio Seio 620 pumps to replace a powerhead or two, but how many for a 50g and where to place them? I was thinking one at the bottom right, and one on the left towards the top, but is that too much flow for a 50?

While I was working I pi$$ed my BTA off, and it split overnight, still can't decide if thats a good thing or a bad thing.

I think that's it for now...lets hope

 

[AustinReef]

i'll wait for others to chime in but heres my 2 cents. My ceriths spend a great deal of time in the sand. I think they would survive without it though. Watchmans are pretty adaptable and i think it would just find a nice small cave or crevice to call home. If the scooter is eating prepared foods, i think he will also be fine. Finally, i havent had good experience with Rio pumps, but i dont think that will be too much flow if placed on the bottom to disperse detritus. Just use the flared attachment. I use 1 aquaclear 204, 3 maxi jet 600's and 1 maxi jet 900 plus the flow from the skimmer and a eheim that does like 250gph on my 40 hex. Good circulation is really important. Good luck with the new BB.
-Austin

 

[fidojoe]

Thanks My watchman seems to be doing fine, as well as the scooter, and they are both eating some flake and lotsa cyclopeeze I have been thinking about giving another nano a shot after my failure at the 2.5, I was thinking a 10g or a 20h, with a shallow SB for my scooter and watchman. Right now, I have an aquaclear 3000, an AC 201 and 301, and a powersweep 216 (160 gph), and my 200 gph skimmer. I still have a little detrius settling but not a whole lot, and that is picked up by my conch's, which I'm going to have to give up shortly

 

[Witfull]

welcome to the club Joe!! my conchs are doing fine in my BB so dont think about getting rid of anyone untill you see thay are distressed about the environment.

 

[fidojoe]

Thanks Wit! Woohooo, I was afraid I was going to have to get rid of my favorite cleaners. Last week I broke down an bought 15 hermits to try and battle the crud building up on the SB, now I have to constantly keep an eye on the tank (not that thats a bad thing) to make sure those evil little boogers don't terrorize anything. They are kind of humorous to watch on the BB tho, they try and walk on the glass, and it looks like a spider on rollerskates, and when they fall, its all over, they have such a hard time getting back up, and when another hermit slides by, they pull them over, trying to right themselves