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Barebottom or Sand?


gltoland

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I was told by innovative marine that my 20 gallon step-down tank would need sand because there's not enough in the tank for a good supply of bacteria to grow on if I went bare bottom.

 

Any truth to that?

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I have a 10g BB tank. 2 clowns and some sps corals. A decent amount of rock and tank is fine. I think it's up to you .

My 50g has sand and I like the way it look over the BB 10g. The one real advantage to going BB is to really add flow without having the sand

storms . I have a lot more flow in my 10 then I do in my 50 due to the sand in the 50.

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On 3/21/2020 at 9:43 PM, gltoland said:

I was told by innovative marine that my 20 gallon step-down tank would need sand because there's not enough in the tank for a good supply of bacteria to grow on if I went bare bottom.

 

Any truth to that?

Nope.  Sand provides some bio benefit but not enough to make or break a tank.  As mentioned above there are alternatives. 

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  • 2 weeks later...
christian321uy

ive been doing bare bottom on my im 20 and i love it,i used marine pure 1 1/2 inch spheres at 1 of the chambers at the back for extra bio filtration.

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chunkylovah
22 hours ago, Sally-Jo said:

Hi,

 

What is the advantage to having a bare bottom tank.  I was told by the LFS I needed to have 2 inches in a nano.

Easier nutrient control. Sand traps detritus and food. If sand isnt maintained it can cause increase bad nutrients. With no sand, detritus and food gets swept into the water column and into your filtration easier. They say nanos need sand because it adds a place for necessary beneficial bacteria to thrive, but that can be accomplished by bio-filter media or more rocks. Most of the time sand or no sand comes down to what you visually prefer.

Also, different depths of sand have different benefits/risks.

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