Bare bottom or sandbed

You can get this stuff called starboard I believe. It's white and looks just like sand when filled with water. You can also do terra cotta tiles.

 

Slowly going bare bottom. Seems like the tank does better with less sand. Not saying it is for sure but easier to keep clean for me.
A lot depends on the tank and person running it.
I do like the look of sand though.

 

I just redid my tank with eggcrate all over the bottom and just enough sand to cover it. I added a little extra sand around the rock where my YWG lives. The new sand grains are about 2mm each and just large enough that my pistol shrimp can build with them up without them blowing down. They're also large enough that I can use a gravel vacuum to clean my sand bed each water change. I prefer the look of a sand bed and by choosing a slightly large grain I find it functions better.

 

Can I ask for educational purposes what is the benefit to bare bottom?

 

Allows for much higher flow, easier to prevent dead spots, easier to spot and get detritus, won't get stuck in mag floats, won't blow into corals, no sand storms should a powerhead fall, and no nastiness forms (sulfur gas for example in deeper beds). But 99% the first 3 reasons.

I'm against egg crate in a sand bed, especially a shallow one. It basically sections off each little area of sand significantly inhibiting the microfauna from doing their thing in the sand. Practically makes it not live sand. Just my opinion.

 

I recently saw a bare bottom tank that looked amassing with all the coral encrusted on the glass. That's what got me on the BB route

 

Sand Bed.

 

How is your ywg doing with the egg crate? I put it under my sand as well and my yellow diamond watchman keeps uncovering a spot down to just bare glass and egg crate in 1 spot only. I guess he likes the look of it lol

 

Sand beds are a ticking time bomb IMHO. If you keep a tank for a significant period of time you're going to get dead spots, very very bad.

 

I picked out a rock with sort of an arch on one side (the bottom) and cut out a square in the eggcrate. I put the rock over this square in the eggcrate with the edges of the rock sitting on eggcrate but the center is over the open square. Now my shrimp can dig and build all he wants without fear of him collapsing anything. They seem to like it more, the YWG is more active than ever before.

As far as eggcrate blocking micro fauna, they should have no trouble making their way between squares. There is a layer of sand on top that they could move through if the plastic prevented it. Not that I have much micro fauna with a Halichoeres wrasse spending his whole day looking for things to eat.