75 Planted tank to a Reef

[Airphotog]

Well my beautiful 75 is almost empty of it's contents. I am trying to decide wether to go bare bottom or not. I have rock ready to go that has been circulating with light in my garage all summer. My sump is full of rock and also has been circulating for months. The sump housed a pair of clowns for months until I just recently put them in the nano. The sump also has some nice big Aiptasia, I put 3 Berghia's in with them yesterday so it will be a couple of weeks for it to be ready. I know this has been discussed in the past but just asking again. The tank is your standard four foot 75 acrylic.

Brian...

 

[IPisces]

I have semi bare bottom in my 75. I put a thin layer of sand in front of the rocks. With flow behind and under the rocks, it keeps it clear of detritus for the most part. Then the nassarius snails and the sand sifting starfish keep what little sand I have clean. Its pretty much your personal preference. If you have no sand, anywhere light gets to will eventually get covered in coraline algae. I have gone BB on two tanks, medium sand bed on one and then like I said a thin layer in the front section of the 75. Then too if you want a wrasse, you will want a sand bed of some kind depending on what wrasse you get. I have a wrasse in one tank w/no sand. You can also put a shallow plastic or class bowl full of sand in the back of the tank somewere for them too. I dont think it is any easier maintenance wise, to take care of. So its really your preference. But then if you go BB you dont have fish burrying your coral with sand!

 

[chelseagrin]

dude dont do bare bottom. if you do semi bare bottom the sand in front gives the illusion that there is sand all around the tank i would go that route if your eally want some bare bottom. but other than that sand isnt that much of a pain and bare bottomed tanks just dont looks good, or natural. its easy to have high flow corals in a tank with sand i would just do it that way.

 

[Krish]

dude dont do bare bottom. if you do semi bare bottom the sand in front gives the illusion that there is sand all around the tank i would go that route if your eally want some bare bottom. but other than that sand isnt that much of a pain and bare bottomed tanks just dont looks good, or natural. its easy to have high flow corals in a tank with sand i would just do it that way.

I'll have to send you some pics of my bare bottom tanks. I used white PVC board bottoms to give the illusion of sand without having to use sand. Sand is nice, but any in my old bare bottom tanks would never stay put plus I don't like the maintenance they require. One tank I had had over 100x turnover rate so sand was not an option. I'll get you a link to what I used. Pretty cool stuff


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Krish]

Here's the thread on the pvc board I used below. My 38 gal reef tank which had about 105x turnover rate is not in that link, but that had a white pvc board bottom as well. Sand is nice, but it all depends on what you are after. I prefer not to use sand so I can run enough flow to keep everything in suspension in the water column to be either filtered out or used up by corals rather than lost in the sandbed. Brian, my old 75 fal is the first tank in that link. Only thing with running bare bottom tanks is you have to stay away from fish and inverts etc that require sand.

http://www.reeffrontiers.com/forums/f14/info-pvc-board-59909/

 

[chelseagrin]

wow kris that does really look like sand! that looks surprisingly good! do you have problems with detritus buildup?

 

[Krish]

wow kris that does really look like sand! that looks surprisingly good! do you have problems with detritus buildup?

Never! Here's a few shots below of the flow in the 38 gal I had. 2 outputs up top with Y adapters making it 4 outputs up top and 4 down low for the closed loop then one return so a total of 9 nozzles. Detritus never collected anywhere in the tank. Actually, nothing settled in that tank. On the 75gal, I had one spot that detritus collected that I just siphoned out. It made life easy just vacuuming one spot than a shallow sand bed you'd have to do the whole thing as detritus can easily be lost in it.

 

[Airphotog]

I really like the sand look so I may just go with it. I also like sand sifters.

 

[Darthv247]

good call i really prefer the look of sand too. something about the uneven lines and depth it adds really make a difference in my opinion. a small layer 1-2 inches wont move around as much as you would think anyways. mine piles up sometimes but i just move it back during reg maintenance