I have gone to the dark side

Looking good!

(Standard disclaimer, to each their own, etc. etc. etc. but...)

I personally can't STAND the look of bare bottom tanks...
 
Well, things look great Jason. I see what you think in 6 months, and if you still like it, you might convince me to switch.

Chris
 
Hmmm... I suspect a female may have been involved in this decision. :shock:

Oh and that's one "Hot" tank! :D
 
Actually Bill, she didn't, although she was pleased with the result.

Rick - I used 30lbs of crushed coral and 40 lbs of aragonite reef sand. Not exactly sand, a little more coarse.
 
Thank you. I have been really happy with the color, the problem is that the growth is abismal. I am hoping to get that turned around though.

Thanks for all the compliments everyone
 
Jason did you pull out the starboard or just cover it up? Also expound on what you didn't like. Was it just the looks?

I like my black starboard so far but who knows in 6 months! Seriously I don't think I could have sand with all the flow I'm going to have!
 
I pulled the starboard out. First off part of why I didnt like it is because my tank has no coraline thanks to a 16" deep tank with 2 x 250w. So the starboard would only look dirty and not purple. Also I believe that my tank was way too sterile. There was no nutrients in there, but there was also no life.

As far as flow goes, I had to turn down my flow when I put the sand bed in. I had a wave2k and a MJ 1200 stream in there when it was bare bottom. The wave2k was too big with the sandbed and was pulling sand into because of the short tank hieght, plus it would over power the sand bed. The MJ 1200 alone moves the sand if I dont have it pointed in one certian place. I plan on replacing the MJ 1200 with two mj 600 streams on swirlers. They estimate those at around 1000gph, so two of those plus IO have a mag 12 for my return that I would guess at 700 gph at tank level will still give me 67.5 times turnover. I think angled properly I wont have any problems handling that with the sandbed. I tried to go with a little bit more course sand to help handle the flow.
 
Also I have run every tank before this one with sand. On my other tanks I didnt have calcium reactors or any of that stuff and none of my levels stayed nearly as stable as they do in this tank, but in those tanks I had much better growth rates. I will not rule out that my overpowering of lighting may somehow be negatively affecting growth rates, which seems odd to me, but you never know. I believe the real culprit is a large lack of nutrients that has caused very light corals and probably a lack of nutrition for growth. I have tried feeding more and running a somewhat heavier bioload, but it hasnt really helped much. I believe having some nutrients trapped in the sandbed that release slowly as they are consumed by bacteria or shifted by tank inhabitants will help to act as a fertilizer for coral growth. I think having some nutrients in the sand bed, that are managed and not allowed to get excessive, will be very benificial to the tank as a whole.
 
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