Sand or bare bottom fuge?
- Thread starter SteveZ15
- Start date
- Location
- East Stroudsburg, PA
I guess bare bottom is the "new way" to make a reef easy. Ill stick with the DSB in the refugium and 1 1/2-2" in the display.
The livestock we keep comes from the ocean, that has sand. If you want to keep gobies, wrasses and other stock have fun with BB. Can it be done yeah but I don't care much for a glass box with rocks and corals in it. If I liked that I'd just go to LFS and spend 5 hours a day looking at their corals on egg crate or their live rock tanks.
I personally enjoy watching a goby sift sand and to catch a wrasse dive into the sandbed more than watching an acro's 1/16" polyps extend. SPS are nice but I think a tank just looks way better with sand and like I said look at some of the best known tanks out there, they have sand beds.
Ill stick to sand. I never had crazy phosphates with any of my systems and all I did was keep a 2" bed in the DT, 4" in the fuge and do good husbandry. I actually had an algae outbreak one time- when I was going through my worst time with some personal stuff and neglected the tank for months.
My hole argument stemmed from the expert throwing capital NO's about sand like an authority on the matter.
Opinions are one thing- trying to lay down the law(your law) is another.
The livestock we keep comes from the ocean, that has sand. If you want to keep gobies, wrasses and other stock have fun with BB. Can it be done yeah but I don't care much for a glass box with rocks and corals in it. If I liked that I'd just go to LFS and spend 5 hours a day looking at their corals on egg crate or their live rock tanks.
I personally enjoy watching a goby sift sand and to catch a wrasse dive into the sandbed more than watching an acro's 1/16" polyps extend. SPS are nice but I think a tank just looks way better with sand and like I said look at some of the best known tanks out there, they have sand beds.
Ill stick to sand. I never had crazy phosphates with any of my systems and all I did was keep a 2" bed in the DT, 4" in the fuge and do good husbandry. I actually had an algae outbreak one time- when I was going through my worst time with some personal stuff and neglected the tank for months.
My hole argument stemmed from the expert throwing capital NO's about sand like an authority on the matter.
Opinions are one thing- trying to lay down the law(your law) is another.
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I Wont Take Sand Out Of My Display That I Like I Dont Mind The Sand In The Fuge Either As Long As Its NNt The Problem.What Clean Up Crew Do YOu Use In The Fuge I Have None In THere In Fear Of StarVing Them. Im GoNNa Try Switching Some Rock And Mabe A Few Mangroves.What Is Really Considered High Phos When Does It Become Harmful For Sps. Im Just NotUsed To Seeing .08 Two Days After Waterchange.I Change Rowa Once A Week 60 Grams To Try T Deplete If Rock Is Leaching. I Test 3Times With Same Sample And Avg To Get Phos Reading. Dont Trust Accuracy Of HanNa ChCker.Could The Pellet Food Be The Problem.
" A refugium with no sand isn't really a refugium in my eyes. A fuge is supposed to have a deep sand bed."
Just to make something clear, i NEVER say , refugium w/NO sand, is just NO sense, Refugium is Refugium and sump is sump 2 thinks totally dif. i said NO sand and NO sand ( or crash corals ) in sump, some ppl. use those.
- Location
- Dingmans ferry PA
Tell you the truth Jimmy i dont even notice the cutting board anymore. And when i had sand i never noticed my wrasses diving into the sand. And quite honesty all the great tanks i have seen with my own eyes had no sand even when i first got in the hobby so its not a new thing. I am able to blast current in my tank now,I can easily clean which is great and i have coraline growing on the cutting board already and im sure my montis will be all over it in no time. And yes the ocean has sand but our tanks are nothing like the ocean. I like my corals and the mini crash i had in april the sand is the #1 suspect in that murder 
Right now i run BB , dosing Vodka and 200+ live rocks, is all about Bacteria, if u got the right #,The different bacterias (aerobic and anaerobic) form, in and around the rocks, i run 2.600 gal. return pump + 2 Votech MP40 Wes + 2 x Formerly 7 Magnum 2.750 gal. behind my rocks, detritus go direct on over flow box, via Protein Skimmer and 200 micron filter sock. NO GFO, i got some Active Carbon on top of return pump. I try to control the PO4 0.00 to 0.03 by "poisoning" the tank w/food, right now i dose 20 ml of Vodka, if i dont feed go 0.00 in two days, if i feed go around 0.03-0.06 depende the amount of the food (Oyster Eggs,Brine Shrimp,Mysis Shrimp,Cyclops,Bloodworms) so lots of flow got more food, more O2, strong and Healthy Fish and Corals just like reef, i crash my tank because of Sand, is true i mess w/Zeovit stuff to, but ask pl. w/DSB ( or google) after 6-7 years ,why they can not control the PO4. And about laws ?!, they said (internet) 3-5 watts per Gal. MH lights and 1-2 lb. live rocks ,per Gal. of water now what about LED per gal. ?! Don't get me wrong, i will love to see some sand , but ppl. (include me) got greedy, more, fishes, more corals, more food , than Po4 start to parking in u Sand.
I got plenty of flow 2 mp 10 on tidal mode with nutrient export on slightly more than half speed and 2 return lines on each side for surface movement,I know the tank is stuffed lots of coral 2 clowns one anthias one blenny one dotty one pj..I think I am gonna shut the fuge and empty it all and start new and see what happens.I can always add sand if that was not the problem,ill also take some out from the dt but I def want some at lleast to cover the bottom.I can always put sand back in the fuge ill put in a tupperware container and put that in the fuge.The tank is 236 days old I hear around this time things can go up or down.One thing I can say is I learned a ton in the time I had this tank.I made 20 gals last night Im gonna go for it.I have to shut everything and dump the whole fuge water and all correct.My big mistake was not geting a bigger tank I was worried about being on the second floor.Duke the purple cap I got from you at the spring swap almost doubled and attached to the surrounding rocks.Once I get this tank fine tuned I should get real nice color and growth like it should be and it should be one bad *** 40.Thanks everyone for your help and opinions
- Location
- Howell, NJ
Wasnt this thread a discussion about his fuge? :scratch: keep to topic
- Location
- Glendale,Queens.
Another option is to have a plasticor acrylic tray in the five area and fill that with sand (best of both worlds)
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