Bare Bottom Ques

[Sora]

Hey all im thinking of going to bare bottom or using starboard. Anyone have any expierience with this is it worth it?

[paulpp187]

best thing i could have done

[Sora]

Ok well how do i go about doing it. I want to change from my dsb to barebottom just curious if i take out the sand with the tank recycle?

[Shoestring Reefer]

You probably won't see any ammonia or nitrite.

When I took out my DSB, my nitrates went up and then slowly went down. I can't remember how high they went, or for how long, but they might have been too high for a SPS tank. I posted the numbers on RC somewhere, I'll try to remember to look when the search feature is enabled again. I had a turf scrubber but no skimmer at the time, and algae is known to be slow to respond to changes. The good news is, my nitrates went to zero with no DSB and no skimmer. Eventually my macro stopped growing, so I got rid of it: nitrates still stayed at zero. But I only had 3 lil fish in a 55. :)

[Nuhtty]

www.cuttingboardcompany.com

I suggest the 1/2" white cutting board.

Measure the inside of the tank and then subtract about 1/4" from either side to leave room for the silicone seams.

I did it on my 2 smaller tanks but have decided to do a SSB on my 65 gallon.

You can really rev up the flow of powerheads and return lines with BB. If you have questions about it, PM me. As I said, I did starboard on both the 29g and 38g tanks.

[mmd]

i went bare bottom last summer, until my arrest for indecent exposure

[Shoestring Reefer]

Lots of people use starboard/cutting board without siliconing it in place; whatever detritus gets under it doesn't seem to be a big deal.

[minh_han]

If you do decide on BB, can you save the sand? I still like the DSB, and I know a number of reefers who could use the sand in their system.

[my2girls]

I got my starboard locally from Industrial Safety in West Hartford.