Barebottom Tank

[gjuarez]

Brian, did you make pvc racks? If so, how did you keep the racks from sliding on the surface of the starboard.

[ansonluna]

what did you chissel into the rock? i guess can you be more specific .

[Ross]

a chisel and hammer works good.

[ansonluna]

;) ahhh. there are never stupid questions, only stupid people .

[JeffCo]

To create more open space within the rockwork for fish and flow I used a big milk crate. Then piled the rocks all over it. The fish love the Cove it made and I get great flow through the rocks.

[gjuarez]

Hey Anson, what did you decide on?

[ansonluna]

Going BB. I have just had to have the stand, hood and sump built. Will be showing it off next week, when it is in the new place. I will just move this thread to the "equipment and do it yourself".

[Thunderkat]

I have a plenum system (deep sand bed) and the one thing I really like about it is how fast my soft corals grow (lots of food produced for them by the deep sand bed). I also just checked my calcium and I am sitting at 500 ppm and still have my bottle of B-ionic in the shrink wrap still unopened waititng for the day they are needed. My coralline algae grows so fast that I see the hermit crabs tearing off big chunks from the glass and eating it just to see it grow back faster than the hermit crabs can eat it.

I also love to watch all the worms in the sand, not to mention my 2 fighting conches and nessarius snails submerging and surfacing from the sand to eat.

I don't know if I can attribute this to my sand bed but I have also bought a fish with ich (didn't see it until it was too late) and it recovered quickly in my tank, and I even bought a LPS coral that was very damaged when I acquired it (again didn't see it until I got home) and now it is doing great.

Gary taught me about the plenum system and I am so happy I followed his advice and tried it, it made a tremendous difference (see my gallery for before and after pictures).

I am not saying barebottoms are bad, some of my friends have magazines full of pictures of them :skeezy but they are just not for me.

[Brian1f1]

I really don't like the look of bb's. Its just not natural. At least put some rock rubble down there! I have a 2 to 3 inch sand bed in my reef and it has been perfectly stable with tons of life. Mine is very uneven so I have some area's with little sand and some with 5 or even 6 inches. This alows you to keep all sorts of cool sand dwelling animals. Your going to Exclude yourself from the Jawfish party!!