Bare Bottom Tank

[txg8gxp]

I've been very curious about bare bottom setups. I understand some of the common pros/cons of bare bottom. Down side seems to be less biological filtration, less ph buffer, and for alot of people it just comes down to the look. On the plus side, less detrius traps, easier to maintain high flow rates to keep everything suspended in the water, easy cleaning, and so on. I'm curious about the more important info, does BB mean you must dose ph buffers, calcium, etc. Any advise or info would be great. Thanks.

[ErikH]

Giau (aquasport24) has been having trouble keeping his PH down in his BB tank.

I think if you ran enough flow with a sandbed for detritus suspension, you could trap most of it in filtersocks. The rest would be for your cleanup crew. That's what I am doing currently.

[aquasport24]

Here is my 2 mos. old experience w/ BB. I don't think BB has any roll in PH swing at all. It best to run your skimmer wet b/c all the detrius running down from the DT. I just blow all the trap detrius to one corner when i do WC. I can place or adjusted my Vortech where ever or however strong i wanted to. The bottom will look bare and unnatrual at first but now am starting to have some coraline on the bottom already. I can always add sand later if i don't like the BB look anymore.One of the cons so far is i can't add any sand dweller in my tank. You can always add more LR in the DT or the sump for more bio-filtration in place of sand.You 're welcome to come over and check out my tank anytime.

[aquasport24]

Oh, my PH is real high now b/c am running a kalk reactor.It gets up as high as 8.6 but i see no effect in livestock.It will come down alot once i get my calcium reactor up on line.

[txg8gxp]

Good info, I have read you want to wet skim. Without a sand bed, I can see less pH(only if the sand bed is a good buffer). But like you said, there are many ways around that. Did you use starboard for the bottom?

[aquasport24]

Just bare bottom,.

[txg8gxp]

Glass or Acrylic?

[ReefCube]

BB is the best if you plan to do SPS and you have a ton of flow

[Regric25]

I was thinking about doing a BB tank with my 100 gallon when it comes in and having a DSB in my refugium.. That should help with any loss in biological filtration right??

[txg8gxp]

True, but at the same time I like the idea of a DSB until is gets moved. So you could still have issues caused by DSB even with it in the sump.

I was thinking about doing a BB tank with my 100 gallon when it comes in and having a DSB in my refugium.. That should help with any loss in biological filtration right??