Substrate or Not

[hnokaoi]

I have an Oceanic 90 gallon tank with live rock, protein skimmer, and bare bottom sump with Cheto algae. I have no substrate in the main tank for now but am thinking about adding some. Is it better to have no substrate for cleaning purposes or is it ok to add some? The tank is going to be a fish and invert system. Thank you!

[toniell]

For the purpose of cleaning bare bottom would be better.

[ReefPlayground]

For keeping the sump clean., keep it bare bottom

[luvmylo]

I just took the sand out of my 50 and it's so much cleaner. BB is the way to go

[Loverotties]

To cold for BB oh! tank.I still like the sand.

[Tim224DT]

Well this being an invert system along with fish what kind of inverts are we talking about?? That will hold the answer if you should add sand or not.

I really like my BB tank easy to clean more flow and so on. But also like a DDDDDDeeeepppppp sand bed tank like my 10 gallon nano which is around 4"-5" becuase a nice white sandbed is nice to have in a tank. But i also like to keep starfish in that tank.


Tim

[Geoff]

what are your goals for the system? if ease of maintenance than BB. if you just need the look of sand than go shallow and know that in a few years time it will need to be replaced. if you are able to get to it all easily than this will not be that big of a deal. when aquascaping think ahead and make sure that all areas of the sand bed are easily siphonable.

if the sand bed is going to be over 2" deep then i suggest raising the LR up off the bottom of the tank so that it is just above the level of the sand. this allows the LR to purge itself of phosphates.

G~

[wyliecoyote]

i kept a barebottom tank from 99 to 2003. at that point all the rage was deep sand bed. i set up my 100 a few months ago and went with about a 3 to 4 inch sand bed and am sort of regretting it. also notice that a bare bottom tank is the trend right now. i think a bare bottom tank is easier to clean, but a sand bed probably keeps more stable water parameters at least for the first couple of years. i have no scientific proof, i'm just assuming. i'm sure someone will chime in and say i'm wrong about that. one person in particular seems to like to disagree with me on this forum no matter what i say.

[DarthOcellaris]

Definetly use your stocking plans to decide whether or not to go BB.

[Geoff]

not necessarily disagreeing with you wylie.

sand bed tanks are more forgiving of bad husbandry than BB tanks. a DSB is not as forgiving of power failures though. things can go super bad in a DSB very quickly if flow is stopped for any reason.

G~