BettaFishMommy Posted February 20, 2011 Report Share Posted February 20, 2011 heheheee, figured that'd get your attention, lol. yesterday i took all the sand out of my big guys' tank and went bare bottom. as i was sucking out the sand i noticed it had gone black in an area where it was piled up between 2 and 3 inches, and as i sucked the sand out, large bubbles were released from the area. eeeek! i've read that deep substrates can cause gas pockets but didn't think the sand in this tank was deep enough in any area to do that. needless to say, the bucket of sand does NOT smell good at all, and definitely has a 'something died' aroma. i'm glad i caught that before anything happened to Gus and Chuck! so for all of you with bare bottom tanks for your big fish, what do you like about it? what don't you like? i know i'll be doing water changes more frequently, to keep the tank looking good, since there is no substrate to catch mulm and detritus any more. and now Gus has the whole bottom of the tank with which to box with his reflection, not just the middle where he would push the sand out of the way. silly fish dog..... lol. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wingin' It Posted February 20, 2011 Report Share Posted February 20, 2011 ...and now Gus has the whole bottom of the tank with which to box with his reflection, not just the middle where he would push the sand out of the way. silly fish dog..... lol. hahahaha...yay Gus! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BettaFishMommy Posted February 20, 2011 Author Report Share Posted February 20, 2011 and the best thing about going bare bottom..... when Gus or Chuck do their little 'freak outs' where they randomly decide to go zipping across the tank close to the bottom, no more sand flying everywhere, woo hoo! sometimes i think they do that just to tick me off, lol. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jvision Posted February 20, 2011 Report Share Posted February 20, 2011 Not sure what size filter you have on the tank, but I remember seeing someone modify the intake of their FX5 so that it captured ALL the poop in the tank - but it only works on bare-bottom tanks. Basically, they lowered the intake hose to w/in 1/2" of the bottom and took the strainer off. You could probably do a similar with just about any filter. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MarkoD Posted February 20, 2011 Report Share Posted February 20, 2011 i use to be able to catch all the poop off my aragonite sand bottom with a fluval 404..... i put the intake about an inch off the sand and when the plecos came out at night, they'd stir up all the poop and it would get sucked in..... by morning the sand was perfectly white agian Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BettaFishMommy Posted February 21, 2011 Author Report Share Posted February 21, 2011 filtration is a rena xp2 and a xp4 (yeah.... i don't like to overfilter my tanks at all....... lol!). the intakes used to sit right above the sand (less than 1 inch above), and are now just over an inch from the bottom of the tank. my sand bed was very shallow before i took it out. i considered taking the strainers off and just having the bottom of the intakes open pipe, but i would need to get at least 2 more of the blue pipe sections to make them sit anywhere close to the bottom of the tank. actually, i'd need 1.5 sections for each canister to make the end happen right near the tank's bottom. wouldn't want to take the risk of Gus or Chuck getting hurt on the edges of the pipe. oh, aha! i might be able to modify a couple spare Aquaclear 110 intakes i have kicking around! hope they're the right diameter to fit on the xp piping. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jvision Posted February 21, 2011 Report Share Posted February 21, 2011 I would get some flex tube that fits around the XP pipe, and some 1/2" PVC... I'll try to get some pics of the mod I did on my old AC500 tomorrow. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DanGofCalgary Posted February 22, 2011 Report Share Posted February 22, 2011 (edited) I'd like to see your bare bottom! (hey! you asked for it! ) I run most of my tanks bare bottom, outside of annual killie tanks that are covered in peat, I only have one small tank with substrate. What I like about it is the ease of cleaning. Although I suppose I lose a lot of bacterial load potential from the gravel or sand, the need to check for build ups like you described, and having to always move it about, don't make it worthwhile for me. It's a maintenance time issue for me. Also, I tend to tear tanks down, start up different ones quite often, so don't care for the extra work in that regard either. What I don't like about bare bottom is those times when you go a bit long on water changes, the gunk build up reminds me that I am a bad bad fish keeper. That is a positive and a negative however. The other thing I don't like about bare bottom is the look. I actually really like the look of a nice substrate, and if/when I start some show tanks in other parts of my house, they are likely to have substrate. Edited February 22, 2011 by DanGofCalgary Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BettaFishMommy Posted February 22, 2011 Author Report Share Posted February 22, 2011 depending on the amount of filtration/size of filters on the tank, IMO the substrate really doesn't hold a lot of bacteria. in the instance of my tank i recently removed sand from, the sand was very shallow (when spread evenly it would've been an inch or less), and i run the two rena xp canisters jam packed with sponge and ceramic biomedia. so in my tank's case, i would say over 80-85% of the ben. bacteria is in the filters. oooh, you wanna see a bare bottom huh? lol. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jvision Posted February 23, 2011 Report Share Posted February 23, 2011 Actually, the surface area of substrate WAAAAAAY outnumbers that of pretty much any filter. Especially if your sand was constantly being moved around, you did remove a substantial amount of your bacterial colony... unless you're running sand filters Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BettaFishMommy Posted February 23, 2011 Author Report Share Posted February 23, 2011 Jason, when you consider the surface area of all the biomax and sponges in my two canisters, i'd say the filter media is much more surface area than sand substrate with this particular tank. i've been doing many ammonia/nitrite tests since taking the sand out (just to be on the safe side!) and have not noticed any spikes with either parameter. both have stayed at zero at all times. i did not touch my filters at all when i removed the sand. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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