The Pros & Cons of BB Reef tank?

[straightjiggy10]

Thinking of going BB on my 60G Cube Build Reef Tank and just curious whats the pros and cons , I'm thinking of running miracle mud in sump with live rock and mangroves! Can you please assit me in figuring out f its a good idea, are you BB or SB?

[bananahands]

IMO, BB is really ugly. Yes its easier to clean and all but think about it. YOu'll have to clean it constantly unless you like the look of left over food and detritus sitting on the bottom of your tank.

[straightjiggy10]

IMO, BB is really ugly. Yes its easier to clean and all but think about it. YOu'll have to clean it constantly unless you like the look of left over food and detritus sitting on the bottom of your tank.

 

Ive seen some really nice BB, I guess they have a clean up crew good skimmer and a good scrapper lol im sure its more upkeep than some are in for but in the long run what do you think?

[mmelnick]

I was BB for a while and after a month of not cleaning the bottom (and let's face it, we don't all scrub the bottoms of our tanks ever week or so) I had a "sand" bed of detritus any way.

[straightjiggy10]

I was BB for a while and after a month of not cleaning the bottom (and let's face it, we don't all scrub the bottoms of our tanks ever week or so) I had a "sand" bed of detritus any way.

 

did u notice any pros of being BB that you couldn't achieve as easily with Sb?

[Jacobnano]

I am going BB on my frag tank. I like it for that application. I still get stuff on the bottom, and it is a pain to clean. I don't even have any fish! I have two other reef tanks and one temperate tank that all have sand. It is much simpler and looks better. It looks more natural. Frag tanks don't look natural to being with so BB is alright for them...

[titos]

Maybe I can be a big help, I had a sandbed on my 20L. I didn't like how my sand would sometimes look with detrius. So I went BB. I'm not a fancy gadget reefer. The only good equipment I have is the mp10 and my tek t5. I'm running a nano ramora with the prefilter. That's all. I don't have much of a clean up crew either. I only have 2 astera snails, 3 hermit crabs and a cleaner shrimp. So I think it's very basic set up what I have. The only way a BB tank will look ugly if u have an ugly scape. As long as your creative I think it will be good looking.

[chucktdbm321]

barebottom for over a two months now i guess, um nitrates seemed to drop not sure if its from taking out the sand bed, more water volume, and ive done experiment that im still doing so im not really saying too much about it but it has to be a barebottom tank to do it, i can have so much flow without worrying of sand flying around, i also can suck up pure detritus during water changes, BIGGEST REASON is the ease of moving the tank since im in college sandbeds are a no no lol.

 

Cons i would say is that even after cleaning all the detritus up it comes back within a day lol, your losing valuable amounts of biologoical filtration (def wouldn't go bb on a brand new tank), and some people don't like the look of it

[straightjiggy10]

barebottom for over a two months now i guess, um nitrates seemed to drop not sure if its from taking out the sand bed, more water volume, and ive done experiment that im still doing so im not really saying too much about it but it has to be a barebottom tank to do it, i can have so much flow without worrying of sand flying around, i also can suck up pure detritus during water changes, BIGGEST REASON is the ease of moving the tank since im in college sandbeds are a no no lol.

 

Cons i would say is that even after cleaning all the detritus up it comes back within a day lol, your losing valuable amounts of biologoical filtration (def wouldn't go bb on a brand new tank), and some people don't like the look of it

 

its actually a tank swap i have all rock and corals water and fish stored my tank cracked and i have to exchange it out

[chucktdbm321]

I see, well why dont you try bare bottom? its alot easier adding sand then removing it so give it a try

[straightjiggy10]

BB seems alot easier to me i have lots of acans on floor and they don't like sand

[chucktdbm321]

yea frags and stuff dont get knocked over or anything which was a big plus for me.

[bird]

I see, well why dont you try bare bottom? its alot easier adding sand then removing it so give it a try

Agree

[danielmparker]

my first 5.5 was a sand bottem, like sugar size sand, and it got everywhere. now with my upgrade to a 30b i went bare bottem, i love it, yes it does get dirty with detrius but thats the price i am willing to pay to not have sand all over my rock and corals, i dont think i will ever have sand again. hope that help

[mmelnick]

did u notice any pros of being BB that you couldn't achieve as easily with Sb?

 

The only advantage I can think of would be if you wanted a crazy high amount of flow and your sand got blown around a lot. But I've always had medium high flow and no problems with sand moving that much. You just have to be careful where you point your flow.

 

So for me a sand bed is the way to go.

[brandon429]

was just about to post lower nitrate readings in the aged tank compared with same stockings in bedded tanks, cool to see someone already measured that. how funny, if live rock denitrification was at work in nano reefs it wouldn't matter if we removed the sandbed right? no3 would have been low from the the start

 

I keep sand in the picos only because of the looks and to get that extra zone of life for the burrowing worms etc but a sandbed is probably the most life-shortening physicality we put in our small reef tanks...

 

what you guys posted about the resiliency of detritus is the best testimony to not keeping a sandbed, or cleaning the heck out of one you do keep. detritus formation is constant, and the fact its a cleaning hassle in a no-sandbed tank just means you are accomplishing real export whereas in a bed its stored up.

 

this is not to say bedded tanks can't work, they do, mine do, but when aged past the 3 and 4 year mark some real work is needed to balance the extra degradation of waste that would have otherwise been removed. El Fab's pico tank is probably the oldest pico reef I've seen with fish and the same substrate in use, his refugium does alot of work in binding up reduced detritus (nitrate/phosphate etc) in the sand bed so there are alternate methods for dealing with the reduction of detritus (liberated N is taken up by plants) even if you can't physically remove it.

 

It is far easier to age nano and pico reefs if they don't have a sandbed but I like the beds for the extra challenge and the looks/visual ratios they provide

 

You know how we read about bioballs being nitrate factories along with canister filters? add sandbeds to that argument, exact same dynamic in the nano tank. In a larger tank anaerobic zones are in the correct ratio to break down some of the nitrate if the sandbed can generate those oxygen reduced zones, but you will not find any formal documentation of that happening in nano reefs because it doesn't to any measurable degree.

 

that which is not cleaned effectively will store up detritus which is still whole proteins awaiting to become broken down into nitrate, lots of things can be nitrate factories!

[Weetabix7]

Let me first say that this is just personal opinion here.

I hate sand.

I really do.

For years and years I ran my tanks bare bottom cause the wisdom of the day when I started Reefing in the '90's was that sand should be avoided cause it was a detritus sink.

With my latest 30g setup I decided to give a sandbed a try, partly cause I knew it would be easier to aquascape the way I wanted to if I had a sandbed to stabilize the rock structure.

I am so regretting that decision.

I keep getting this brown junk on my sand that won't go away (not cyano).

I know all the stuff for keeping sand clean, good sand stirrers, good flow, etc, etc.

I have that stuff in place, the sand still isn't working for me.

I'm gonna take that tank down and start over with a BB tank and a Refugium with Fiji Mud in it.

That's the way I have my Pico set up and I love it, it's what works for me.

I just really don't like sand.

But again, that's my personal preference.

[straightjiggy10]

Awesome info here keep it coming, do anyone have pics of their BB to show off?

[Weetabix7]

Well like I said, mine is a Pico, and it's Macroalgae Dominated.

I'll be taking more pics later today, but here's what I have now:

 

 

 

[titos]

Here's a pic of mine, it's a 20L

[gabe_j]

go bb its easier to clean atleast in my situation it is. theres alot less nitrates i used to get between 15-20 now i'm between 0-5 it lets you have alot more flow+water volume. i plan on making a zoa/gsp carpet to cover my floor eventually if not i plan on getting a good sized slab of granite and using that as a stand for the tank to sit on that i think would give it a really neat look. but that idea is still brewing. so all in all i say go bb i love my tank much more without the sand.

[fishfrau]

I think BB looks nice when it's clean, but I've never tried it. I originally had sand in my 29g BioCube, and after fighting red slime then brown algae, I switched to crushed coral. I've heard people bad mouth crushed coral, but in that tank, it's working beautifully. Once a month, I siphon the open areas, which I coulcn't do with sand. I do have a sand bed in my 120g though, and it stays white and clean, but the situation is very different since it's not "nano".

[chucktdbm321]

yep ill get one up here in a sec too. Just wanted to restate for people who have sandbeds and have to move there tanks at all it is honestly so much easier with out dealing with a sand bed its not even funny.

heres some pics of my 15 barebottom.

 

 

Sorry about the really dirty glass and glare from the flash lol

[Rem]

I love BB! I love being able to set my Vortech at 100% and the only dust storm you see is detritus floating to be sucked into the overflow! I painted the bottom of my BB black which cuts down on the reflection and it matches the black back wall, so it looks really nice.

 

A pic before I mounted my frags in my newest build.

 

[scythe]

I went bare bottom in my pico when i moved the tank to my moms, one because it was easier to move. Two because like others have stated it starts to look nasty after a few months and i had bad algae growth in certain areas on the sandbad that would not go away. A week later i moved the tank again, 1200 miles from michigan to florida. It was much easier to set the tank up without the sand. I used alot of LR rubble on the bottom instead. I have not done test to see the effects but i am about to start a week of logs since the tank is up and running at the new location now. It allows for sucking out waste easier like others have stated, before when i tried to suck stuff off the sand it would suck out alot of the sand too. Another things is there is no small particles of sand to get stuck in the powerheads/filters which i had some problems with.

I also believe it allows better for water movement through the LR via water able to flow underneath it.

 

Here is a pic:

Before:

After: