Removing Sand bed - Could I put Live Rock On Glass Bottom?

[Anonymous]

Ok, your original argument was that using sand beds in reef tank aren't truly natural because "there really is no sand close to reefs except in the sense that most of the ocean bottom is sand". Please explain how this makes sense?

Most of the corals we keep at home don't occur in nature close enough to the sand to support the idea that sand is important to their well being (and there are many that sand is detrimental to). Its like saying that a stag-horn fern should be kept in a terrarium with dirt because the tree the fern lives on in nature is on the dirt.

The original point was that it doesn't LOOK natural.

I knew there was a basic misunderstanding.
That wasn't my original point. I am sorry if that is what you got from that post, and I don't think my post actually made that point. The tangent discussion of this thread was about the utility, or lack thereof, or a sand bed, not on its aesthetic qualities. I usually prefer the look of sand to BB.

 

[Unarce]

Oh, what the hell. My sand bed template:

If you were to set up a reef tank with high current, than there would be a lot of bare areas if you had a SB less than an inch high. 2-3 inches is the absolute best way to go. It would be incorrect to claim that a sand bed provides 'more capacity to nitrify and denitrify' simply because it's deeper.

"As much as 70 to 90 percent of the overall denitrification was located in the uppermost centimeter. The remainder was found at 1-3 cm depth"

-T.K. Anderson 1984 "Diurnal Variations of Nitrogen Cycling in Coastal, Marine Sediments."

"anaerobic habitat can be as small as 1mm, that aerobic and anaerobic bacteria essentially coexist, and that as little as 0.08mm distance is sufficient for nitrification and denitrification to take place simultaneously."

-Ecology and Evolution in Anoxic Worlds. Oxford University Press, Fenchel, T. and B.J. Finlay. 1995.

The misunderstanding is that areas with low levels of oxygen are a must for denitrification. Since we now know that aerobic and anaerobic bacteria exist together in the upper portion of the SB, than the heavy oxygen levels of our tanks would not be a factor. It's unlikely that denitrification will occur in the deep areas of a DSB, especially if nitrates never reach it in the first place.

I'd also like to point out that a deeper sand bed doesn't necesarily equate to more biodiversity of life. A shallow sand bed of numerous grain-size will create a number of different environments housing more life than a DSB.

I've only used the BB and shallow sand bed method and really like both. I didn't get into the DSB fad. I do prefer a shallow sand bed because I like sea cucumbers and enjoy watching all the fauna do their thing across the floor at night. Plus, most of the large grains stay along the tank perimeter and turn into little pieces of live rock. It gives the floor a nice two-tone effect. :wink:

 

[middletonmark]

Yes but we are arguing about which looks more natural a sand bed or a bare bottom. Personally I think a sand bed is far more natural than glass or starboard. How much glass or starboard do you see on a reef? If you truly wanted a natural look from a high energy reef zone, you would probably best to have a completely rock covered bottom with pockets of rubble.

I thought we were arguing about whether you could put rock directly on the bottom. Which you can.

In the end, I could care less what the equipment or mechanics of the tank look like. If it's in any way detrimental to the corals I keep ... they determine what substrate or not/etc goes in there.

Then comes ease. If it's easy vs. hard to keep the corals thriving ... I'll factor in my decision because of that.

But I can keep my stony corals looking healthier and more colorful with a bare bottom, no idea what you can do... but that's my experience. As I'm looking at the corals, and involved here in making the corals thrive [my reason for my tank] ... what the bottom looks like is trumped by other more important factors.

In the end, I'll have encrusting corals and zoanthids covering the bottom in another 6 months anyway.

 

[ChrisRD]

Well said Mark.

 

[ChrisRD]

The original point was that it doesn't LOOK natural.
Are you trying to tell me that starboard or glass look more natural than sand in a reef area?

I think you missed the point actually. Time to stop swinging at the shadows...

While you're at it you might want to look-up the word "tact" in the dictionary.