Barebottom and Circulation

[luckycat]

I setup a 90g barebottom (bb) tank about .. I guess 6 months ago. I've been having terrible algae problems, another story..or possibly related.

I have around 850-950 gph circulation just with my return pump from my basement sump...I also have two modified MaxiJets (nozzle sawed off) that in theory add about 100 gph each of flow.

Every week I take a maxijet and move it around the tank to kick up things off the rocks and the bb, and then do a water change (I siphon water directly out of the display).

With a bb, if I do NOT have constant/continual huge flow on the bottom, to make sure everything is "kicked up" and exported through filtration, am I causing perhaps some of the problems I'm having with algae (hair algae)?

BTW my params are all great - nitrates/ammonia/nitrites = 0, salanity pretty steady at 1.022, pH usually around 8.2.

I have been thinking of "starting over", taking out all of my rocks, and putting a dsb in the tank. My prior tank, a 37g FOWLR, seemed to thrive for about 2 years with my dsb, live rock and small protein skimmer.

 

[luckycat]

Any thoughts on this? Maybe not too many bb'ers here?

 

[melosu58]

Not a bad idea to go with the sand bed. Dont have to be deep.

 

[lando]

flow may be part of the problem, however GHA thrives in tanks with PO4 and high NO3. I would turn your attention to your water parameters. Test both your tank and source water for PO4. Are you using tap, RO or RO/DI water? What are your feeding habbits? You can start over if you wish, but if you do not identify and correct the source of the GHA, it iwll just return in a few months.