Has anyone though of ever gluing down a 'sand layer'?

[Cwazy Clown]

So I was thinking.... Bare bottom looks a bit off, especially once the algae takes over, and having a sand bed can cause issues later on...

has anyone thought of putting down a layer of glue/epoxy and gluing down just enough sand to give the bottom texture and the look of sand, without having the issues of sand? Itd be easier to clean too since you can just vacuum the bottom without worrying about sucking out sand...

Input, anyone?

 

[dragoneggs]

Interesting idea... have never seen it though.

 

[mojoreef]

Yea you can do that no problem, but it can be a bit of a job to do it. One thing I have done that seems to have the same visual effect but lasts alot longer is with cutting board material. The name for it evades me right now (high dencity polyethylene??) anyway you get the material cut (easy to do yourself) to fit your tanks bottom, then you take a dremil with a wrasp bit and just model the surface to look lumpy like sand. This way you dont have to worry about products like silacone letting loose or the cost of an expensive epoxy.

anyway just a thought

Mojo

 

[Herefishyfishy]

In a healthy tank, a permanent sand layer would soon turn pink and purple like the back

 

[trido]

In a healthy tank, a permanent sand layer would soon turn pink and purple like the back

Yep, Ive seen alot of BB tanks and a few with the cutting board/epoxy/sand bottoms. Within a year they are all covered in coraline and look the same anyway. The only way to make and keep the bottom looking like sand is to have sand.

 

[Maxx]

There were several tanks a few years back that had an epoxy resin bed. The epoxy resin was poured over/into a sand bed and allowed to harden after several days. When fully cured and dry, the epoxy resin sand bed looked like wet sand. When the tank was filled with water, the epoxy/sand bed looked normal. From what I've seen none of those tanks are still running, but thats not due to issues with the epoxy resin/sand bed, but rather due to other issues. The only user who responded to the thread, stated he had no issues with the epoxy resin for the three years he had the tank running.

Having said all of that, like Herefishyfishy and Trido stated previously, you will end up with coralline algae and possibly vermetid snails etc, growing on the surface altering the appearance of the epoxy/sand bed.

My suggestion is to either go with a barebottom/cuttingboard/starboard(the stuff Mojoreef was talking about), or run a DSB.

I have both a cuttingboard bottom tank and a DSB tank. No issues with either, I personally prefer the cutting board bottom tank.

Nick

 

[Cwazy Clown]

oh thats interesting, so would a cutting board bottom be cleaner from algae than BB?

 

[Maxx]

Idea for faux sandbed. Evirotex lite high gloss finish

Found the link.

Nick

 

[Cwazy Clown]

Oh interesting,

my last post was quite unclear, I meant, would the bottom of one of these epoxy resin beds stay algae (the green kind) free for longer than a BB.

My current settup is BB and i get a fairly thick layer of green algae on the bottom every 2 weeks ish that I have to scrape off. I'm not talking about coraline, I wouldnt mind having a purple bottom, but green is just to much

 

[Herefishyfishy]

Oh interesting,

my last post was quite unclear, I meant, would the bottom of one of these epoxy resin beds stay algae (the green kind) free for longer than a BB.

My current settup is BB and i get a fairly thick layer of green algae on the bottom every 2 weeks ish that I have to scrape off. I'm not talking about coraline, I wouldnt mind having a purple bottom, but green is just to much

I would assume it to be a better foothold for green algae than bare. The algae is oportunistic, it needs food. Increase filtration and decrease feeding to fix excess algae

 

[mojoreef]

Thats going to be up to your tanks parameters. If you have green algae forming on the bottom then it sounds like you have some kind of nutrient problem that is promoting this growth. SO you would have to look to that, the bottom is just the bottom.

Mojo

 

[Cwazy Clown]

sorry, not green algae.. its the algae that you use your mag glass cleaners to scrub off... film algae? lol

 

[Maxx]

Hmmm... I dont have that issue w/ my BB tank. I do have a long spined Diadema urchin and a few,( 3 I think) snails, in addition to a few tangs. Bubble algae,unfortunately, I am "blessed" with, but it doesnt grow on the bottom.

Nick

 

[Cwazy Clown]

so your bottom stays crystal clean? do you not scrub the sides of your tank with a magfloat or something either?

 

[Maxx]

LOL....I wish it stayed crystal clean!

No, i do get detritus build up, more so around the vermetid snails that have attached to the bottom, and I do have coralline algae growing in a haphazard pattern due to lighting and the urchin grazing it off.

One thing I do absolutely religously is a weekly water change of 10-20%. Otherwise my corals suffer. I dont have any pics from this month in my gallery, but I do have some from this past December. Nothing really showing closeup of the bottom, but there is enough to give you an idea. I'm mostly happy with my tank, but its a far cry from Mojo's old tank...some day...

Nick

 

[Cwazy Clown]

okay i went and looked at your thread and thats what my bottom looks like.. except i recently took a coraline scraper and scraped everything off the front bottom of my tank so it looks perfectly clean.... like my front wall... hahah

makes me feel a little better that i'm not going crazy.

so reverting back to the origional question... would a matured epoxied sand bed still look like that with no 'scraping maintenance'

 

[Maxx]

The only scraping I've done on mine was with an old chisel to wipe out about 50% of my vermetid snail population. An epoxy bottom would look just like mine or yours or any other BB tank eventually due critter/biological growth on it.

Nick

 

[dragoneggs]

The short answer is Yes.

okay i went and looked at your thread and thats what my bottom looks like.. except i recently took a coraline scraper and scraped everything off the front bottom of my tank so it looks perfectly clean.... like my front wall... hahah

makes me feel a little better that i'm not going crazy.

so reverting back to the origional question... would a matured epoxied sand bed still look like that with no 'scraping maintenance'

 

[Myteemouse]

our 29 gallon had a false bottom with great foam and rocks stuck in it.. It looked great BUT yes it very quickly went purple like the rest of the rocks!
heres with the false back sides and bottom

 

[Myteemouse]

and yes the yellow tang was only in there for a few days while the naso got settled in the 125..