should I take the leap?

[Evil McToast]

I want to rid myself of dirty sand. The most logical answer is to remove it. A few questions though.

Will it be hazardous on tempered glass (29G)?
Can I have a yellow watchman goby?
What are some limitatuons caused by BB?

[smeese]

If you are gonna do softies and lps I would leave the sand. If you are gonna do sps, mainly acropora then i would get rid of it. You will need a lot of flow to keep the particles of detritus in suspension till removed by the skimmer. I would definately get YWG cause they are neat fish. I suggest a pistol shrimp to go with him. A awesome simbiotic pair. I guess I like sand so I would leave it. Glass will be fine

[Viv]

Evil, please take this the right way, but do some research. Read lots of posts, hit the search button and check out some of the past post...check out pics, equipment, lighting etc. BB tanks are usually used for SPS systems (although some are doing softies, but I think that is the exception) I believe Geoff once told me something like : You make changes because they make sense to you, if they don't you find something else or do more research....I think tanks are kinda personal and really only you can decide whats gonna be good for you. With all that in mind, yeah go BB!

[scoop]

I have virtually the same size tank 28 gl/10gl sump, and I went bb in October. I set my tank up last January (20005) and by August hair algae was taking over. I only used RO/DI water from the LFS and I did very little feeding, but it was difficult to keep the sand clean, particularly under the rocks. I have primarily softies: mushrooms, leathers, zoos, zenia, but also a frogspawn, plate, and a candy cane. I cleared up the algae problem and the only limitations I can see of bb are not getting some of the animals that live only in the sand. I don't think the glass makes any difference and imo a goby would still be fine.

[Weatherman]

I may depend on the individual personality of the Yellow Watchman, but mine went into conniption fits when I removed the sand from my tank. I had to put a little sandbox back in.

[Mike O'Brien]

regarding the tempered glass, I do think caution should be taken if you don't use starboard, but just use starboard. Thing is it can handle a blunt blow, but not a small point. This is fun to try, take a big round rock and throw it at a piece of tempered glass and watch it bounce off, then take a small bit of broken ceramic from a spark plug, and throw it at the glass and watch it shatter.

IME with lps is that most of them enjoy clean water as much as any other coral. But with a BB you can feed them more. I've even consider some non photosynthetic coral's for the cave. I've got 6 LPS in my tank, and I've only had a problem with one, but since it's an L.E. that's just murphey's law at work.

[Little Luey]

Jump in, the water is fine!!

Just a little encouragement, I think you will like the BB tank, you will hear diferent point of views about it but it really only matters what you think. Someone here had a yellow goby living on a PVC pipe on a BB tank, I can't remember who it was. You can always go back to sand if you or your fish don't like BB.

[Evil McToast]

the only filtration I have is a super skimmer in the sump. What else is required for a BB that isn't necessary for a tank w/ sand?

I won't be having any SPS, but I hope to have a hammer and a frogspawn at the top. My light is a 130W orbit PC, so SPS isn't even an option.

On an off topic, my rocks build crud under them, what is the best way to remove this? This is the main reason I want to go BB; hidden CRUD.

[Little Luey]

The best way appears to be cooking the rock. There is thead about that on this forum. The rocks will shead untill all that stored crap comes out, so even after going BB you will see it if not cooked. What will help is to add more flow so that the detritus goes to your overflow and then to the sump where you can vacumm it easier.

[panic]

I have a watchman that seems happy. Just make sure that there are some caves and nooks for it to duck into. The biggest limitation I have found running BB is that you can't slack on siphoning or water changes at all. I'm OC on husbandry, so it works out great for me.