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View Full Version : Thinking of moving from Sandbed to BareBottom.. advice?


Tetra84
11/13/2013, 01:18 PM
Hey Everyone..

My tank has been set up for about two years now, and recently I've been thinking of moving to a bare bottom setup. I've been constantly battling my sand from turning into concrete.. it seems to want to do this no matter what I do (I am dosing 2 part). Siphoning the lose substrate just pulls out all the sand with the detritus that builds up. and I've been fighting red slime that strangely flares up at night time just on the sand bed (normal?) for the last few months. Running GFO, wet skimming, and frequent water changes don't really seem to stop it. All in all it just looks nasty. My corals LPS & SPS dont look as good as they did 6 months ago.. All my parameters look good, but my Hanna Test says I have 0 Phosphates.. I think it's lying to me. From what i've read, bare bottom systems would solve alot of these problems, so I'm willing to give it a shot.

Anyway, Id also like to replace some of my old rock with new dry rock. If I also add a bunch of new BRS dry rocks in with the old rocks after I remove the sand, how long do you think I'd need to keep the old Rock to cycle the new rock before I can remove the old rocks and transfer the coral frags? The main reason is that some of the sand has welded itself to the old rock, and some of the old rock has bubble algae nested inside it that is very difficult to get out.

Anyone have any advice/input before I attempt all this?

Thanks,
Paul

goldmaniac
11/13/2013, 02:53 PM
I'd leave some of the old rock in there at least 3-4 days, that's probably enough. If it was me, i'd leave some old rock in there for about 2 weeks. Got a sump? you can just smash up some old rock into baseball size pieces and put it down there indefinitely.

when I got some new BRS dry rock, I cleared out all the sand, cut and put down some eggcrate, and put the rock on the eggcrate. Then, I put sand back in. This kept the rock off the glass bottom, and the rock isn't sitting ON the sand. you can remove or add sand at your own discretion whenever you want because the rock won't fall when you vacuum up sand since it's not on sand, it's on eggcrate.