Shallow Sand Bed or Starboard Pictures

[Don424]

A newbie here!! Anyone have pictures they can post of a tank with a shallow sand or starboard bottom?

[Gina]

Check the Reef Chronicles thread on the main menu. You should find some there.

[Woodstock]

I went from a DSB to a SSB to barebottom (no starboard). I like the looks of a SSB but it is so much easier to vacuum diterus from a barebottom. I also have come to enjoy the way the corals grow on the bottom glass...it is super easy to frag them

[mps9506]

SSB defeat the entire purpose of going Barebottom IMO. The SSB drastically increases maintence and limits the amount of flow you can place in your tank.
Once your bottom glass or starboard becomes covered in coralline you won't notice.
I personally like the shiny bottom, increase the amount of light reflected back in the tank (at least that's how it works in my head), so I scrape the tank bottom also

[Woodstock]

Oh I liked my SSB. I do like the look of sand but don't think I'll go back to it anytime soon With 1-2" of sand, I was getting good nitrate removal but I did have to carefully vacuum it with every water change which was a bit tideous.

[Witfull]

im pro barebottom. the removal of waste is paramount to reefkeeping, and anything that traps and composts waste, no matter how astetically pleasing, is a deterrent to the overall success to a tank.

personally i feel the more "work" one has to do to a tank to keep it as desired, then the less enjoyable it becomes. i'd rather take 5 minutes to quickly suck out a pile of detrius that forms in a dead spot than an hour vacuuming and doing a water change. leaves me more time to "play".

[Woodstock]

Here here!!

[Don424]

Thanks everyone for the feedback........much appreciated.

My 75g which has/had A DSB crashed some time ago. After just getting over the frustration of that event, I'm getting rid of the sand getting ready to launch a new tank.

My 75g has no refugium or sump..........has to stay that way.........no floods no divorce. My new tank, and this is in the planning stage, is a tank with 75-80 lbs of live rock, with mixed softies(not more than 5or 6) and a few LPS(candy cane and bubble) with 3 or maybe 4 small reef safe fish.

I have a good skimmer......... though I may go even better if needed, and I was planning on 2 Seio 820 pumps plus using 2 of my existing Maxi Jet 1200's for circulation, oplus use and AquaClear 500 or Eheim 2026 for chemical filtration like Phosban and carbon. I have a JBJ 4x65 PC for lighting............ but I'm stuck on the substrate issue.

With softies and LPS do I need heavy circulation? If I didn't/don't, based on the pumps I'm thinking of using, I thought a SSB of mixed size aragonite or fine grain mixed with CC about 1 1/2" - 2 " would be ok. And the othter thought was a Starboard bottom..........simply to avoid the sand issue.........but I like the look of sand. I haven't seen a StarBoard tank in person and pictures are hard to judge sometimes. Comments or thoughts on this.................. THANKS!

[Reef Geek]

Softies and LPS do not need super-duper water flow. I really like the Seios!! Personally I like a sandy bottom. I am kicking around the idea of gluing sand onto starboard. I've never seen it done and dont know how it will turn out, but it is an idea I am kicking around.

[mps9506]

We tried it here. Didn't like the way it turned out.
However I have seen a thread where someone with anano used epoxy mixed with sand poured it on the bottom to make a solid faux sand bed on the bottom of the tankwith smooth surface.
Looked sweet.

Also FWIW I'm still a fan of using oolitic sand and sand beds for softy tanks. the denitrification provided by this sand is a great benefit.

I just am in love with my bare bottomed sps tank right now.