Bare bottom, sand (live?), or crushed coral for tank floor

[hdben]

Going from fish to fish with reef, have a wet/dry w/skimmer. Want to know which is the best way to go for tank bottom. Pros and Cons any advice will help.

Thanks

hdben

 

[XXFirefighter]

Bare bottom ...why?
Sand or even better live sand is the way to go.. "things" grow in the sand and take care of the "levels" of yoru tank.. over time dead sand becomes live if you use LR...
As for CC... STAY AWAY ! Unless you want to vaccumm once a week or so... uneaten food gets trapped and starts to rot.. NOT GOOD ...
I help out @ a LFS and it's under new management. Old owner sold and swore by CC as a bed. Guess what.. No one kept fish alive and kept comin back for more and more fish. Now new owner and I are going out maybe once a week or so and changing out the CC for sand or live sand bed changes.. No more dead fish...

The decision is up to you...
ME? I have a approx 3 in DSB in my tank with 100 lbs of LR and corals...

 

[Corty]

Second the sand for the reasons he just mentioned.

 

[SaltySteve]

Crushed Coral, is this the same as Aroganite?
This is what I have, very fine 2-3 mm max! Are you referring to the larger course deep porous CC?
Thanks, hopefully this will help you to hdben

 

[seaham358]

Ya, CC is the large pieces that trap waste.
Sand IMO is the way to go..... 2-4" I used LS in my reef and play sand in my fowlr and if I did it again i would have put play sand in the reef also. Saving big $$$

 

[emricson]

So what you are saying is that you can convert play sand into live sand by just using some LR?

 

[nodoubt471]

yes you can. use a sand like southdown, and add some LR and the life from the LR will seed the sand.

what size tank are you planning, and what will the inhabitants be? i think you guys really underestimate the virtues of a BB tank. check the first couple pages of this out:

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=223301

if i was ever going to go with a tank larger than 55, this would be how i would go. but it is dependent on what you want to keep.

ie, if you want to keep gobies or burrowing fish or animals, you need a small grain size sand. CC is just a pain in the butt, i agree with that.

 

[RocketSeason]

Crushed Coral is not argonite.

Argonite sand is the way to go. I have a 3 inch deep sand bed in my tank. works well and looks nice.

 

[SaltySteve]

Phewww