i have a 30 gal sps tank with an attached fuge and a few fish... for those of you that have no sand bed, how do you keep the botom clean and free of that green film algae. i want to remove my sand bed. and does this affect Dragonets and their feeding, i have one in this tank and i have kept him sucessfully for 3 years. the reason for me removing it.. i think it looks alot better and i am also planning to put mirrors underneath to reflect the light back up. has anyone ever tried this??
thinking about removing sand bed
- Thread starter Blazin__
- Start date
Blazin__":28tkpygi said:
As I'm sure there's a large population of cirtters in the sand, and I'm fairly sure the dragonet is eating them (amongst other things) I wouldn't do it unless it was actually causing a problem. Especailly in a 30 gallon tank, if the tank was larger (= more LR and other sources of food) maybe I'd do it. Now the refugium might easily make up the difference, depending on how much dragonet food critters make it to the main tank. And effectively makes it a larger tank for foor prodcution purposes.
I'm sure with enough LR and produciton form the fuge, there proabbly should be no problems, but I always go on teh don't fix waht's not broken theory.
As far as the bottom goes, most bare bottom tanks I've seen try very hard to encourage coralline growth on the bottom, or have to clean it frequently. Personally, I tend to go for a shallow mostly cosmetic sand bed on the bottom, unless there's a specific cause for something deeper.
I have no idea what affect mirrors would have. I suspect not terribly much. Even perfectly clean and reflecting 100% (not realistic) of the light that reaches it back up I doubt it would have much of an effect. You're going through a *lot* more water with the reflected light, and odds are very little of it will be directed at an organism in a useful fashion anyhow. There'll probably be rock, bases, skeleton in the way for very much of an organism to receive the light. Maybe if the tank were laid out with a mirror in a mind from the beginning I guess. But even then, getting sufficient reflecion off of it + the extra water probably makes it mcuh eaiser to just put more light over the tank in teh first place.
At best I supect you'll channel alittle more light into hard to see nooks and crannies, but not enough to really influence the organisms. And who know what a mirrored bottom would do to a fish? I sure don't.
I'd keep the sandbed for the sake of the dragonette. I'd only remove the sandbed if you set up a large refugium and let it establish itself for a couple of months.
May I ask why you want to remove it? Is something going wrong with the tank, or are you reading up on the current anti-DSB trend?
As for the mirror, I personally wouldn't do it as I'd think it would be very disorientating for your fish. Mirrors are generally a bad idea on any surface of the tank if you keep fish. It'd also result in some very interesting coral growth patterns. I believe a well balanced tank as a good population of cryptic life, and I'd be afraid the odd and pervasive lighting would destroy some cryptic zones. I'd personally stick with a dark colored background for the bottom if I was going bare-bottomed.
May I ask why you want to remove it? Is something going wrong with the tank, or are you reading up on the current anti-DSB trend?
As for the mirror, I personally wouldn't do it as I'd think it would be very disorientating for your fish. Mirrors are generally a bad idea on any surface of the tank if you keep fish. It'd also result in some very interesting coral growth patterns. I believe a well balanced tank as a good population of cryptic life, and I'd be afraid the odd and pervasive lighting would destroy some cryptic zones. I'd personally stick with a dark colored background for the bottom if I was going bare-bottomed.
im not anti DSB im just movin next month... and i picked upanother tank that im drilling instead of having the hang on overflow. im keeping the same size of tank. and im contemplating weather or not its worth it to move the sand into the new tank or just throw it away... i do have a sand bed in my fuge... but im most worried about the dragonete
I would not move an established sand bed to another tank. During the move you will stir it up and put all of the traped detritus back into the water. It will be like starting with uncured live rock. Put a new sand bed and seed it with a couple of cups of sand from your old one.
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