Bare bottom tanks and filtration

[tiger15]

I changed all HOB pads about twice a week to keep up with solid waste production. The HOB pads provide some biological filtration, but not much compare with live sand and rock in the tank as the pads are renewed twice a week. I do 75% WC weekly to reduce nitrate and remove dissolved organic compounds before they turn into nitrate. WC in fresh water does the job protein skimmer and deep sand denitrification do in Berlin reef system. My substrate is only 1/2" as any deeper will go anearobic.

 

[pops]

sounds like you got it figged, I do fin level with a hardy vacuum once a week, I run a reverse UG system in the 180, its bottom drilled, 2 pumps, each at about 650gph with large sponges on the intakes. layer of pee gravel over the grate chambers then a layer of crushed. If it did not have this system
I would not feel comfortable with out a large sump, or a couple canisters. on top of that running to AC110 HoB.

 

[nossalucard]

I ran a 75 freshwater BB once due to a 13inch+ Red Devil that when he sifted gravel, some would get stuck in a "pocket" under his lower left gill. Pain in the AZZ to pull him out and do minor surgery to get the gravel out, so went BB.

I ran 20 Aquaclear 110's, a SunSun 304B, and had a WIDE FLOW circulation marineland powerhead(I called it the POOP CHOPPER...LOL) on a timer to "kick up" the crud every 3 hours for 30 minutes, so the Aquaclears could catch it. Worked pretty good, but I didn't "love" the look.

I have also run my "REEFONLY" softie coral tanks as barebottom on "black" starboard cutting boards. Once the coraline and and GreenStar Polyps(which looks like grass) covers them, you cant even tell... Same principle, powerhead kicks up the crud, and the protein skimmer catches it.

 

[Arowana718]

Barebottom or gravel bottom is up to fish keeper. I like bb bc its cleaner. With a powerhead, you will rarely see poop lying there forever.

All my tanks are bb, i use to have gravel amd sand, it was too messy for me.

 

[pacu mom]

Whatever filtration you use, whether it be canister or HOB, if you modify the uptake and place it right off the floor, there may be no debris to vacuum. In our 300 gallon tank the debris tends to eddy. We have a pipe right off the floor. In 9 1/2 years, there has been no debris to vacuum. The uptake would have to be strategically placed. These poop suckers have worked really well for us. We do have separate mechanical filtration with two Pentair RTL-25 spa filters and a Hammerhead pump, but someone reading about our filtration adapted their HOB filter and got similar results (no debris on the floor).

 

[pacu mom]

IMO, Any tank that is bare floor and has filtration other than a sump could benefit from poop suckers. Love poop suckers so much, we have six of them going in the big tank. (The other five pipes are uptake and return pipes)

 

[kendragon]

You got the nicest poop suckers around. lol

 

[Wailua Boy]

I personally like the look of a half to quarter inch of sand but I do think it is easiest to maintain pristine water quality in a bare bottom tank.

 

[tomojsg]

I personally like the look of a half to quarter inch of sand but I do think it is easiest to maintain pristine water quality in a bare bottom tank.

+1 though i have bare bottom tanks and tanks with .5-1" sand beds.

 

[nzafi]

I went bare bottom a while ago and it was much easier to maintain. I just recently decided to take my 180g to bare bottom (had to remove 200lbs of black sand). I found that significantly more waste ended up in the filters and that it was much easier to maintain lower nitrates. The lower nitrates I assumed was from the filters getting more of the waste. Also, when I do vacuum the bottom it is much quicker and I can get alot more of it. With substrate whatever you dont get just continues to add to the nitrates.

When I experimented it was a 75g and went well. Curious to see how things go on my 180g now that I removed the sand. I am running 3 AC110s along with jebao powerhead that moves about 2000gph. Stock is just two fish (11in and 5in piranha).