Sand ?

[Pro Fish Keeper]

I am just wondering what the common denominator in substrate for a reef tank is. I recently put 3 inches of sugersized aragonite in my main tank and about 4 inches of 25-26 sized crushed coral in my fuge. What is everyone running in their main tank and fuge(if you have one)? Thanks.

Brandon

[Aquattro]

People run anything from bare bottom to 6 inch DSBs. some use crushed coral, others use starboard (white nylon cutting board material). Some use silica sand, others use glass beads. What you have sounds fine.

[Beverly]

Originally Posted by Pro Fish Keeper

What is everyone running in their main tank and fuge(if you have one)?

Brandon,

Just went bare bottom in our three reefs, a 37g, a 67g and a 120g, about a month ago. No fuges or sumps. Siphon out the bottom of each tank weekly and get loads of crud in the bucket. Also clean the foams in the quickfilter attachments of various powerheads weekly. Get lots of crud out of them as well

[Richer]

I've got a 30 gallon with a 15 gallon fuge which are both bare bottom. The fuge is crammed with leftover baserock and chaetomorpha for nitrate export. I get tons of crude settling out in my fuge which gets siphoned out whenever I do a water change (once every 2-3 weeks).
Everything is running quite well, though there's no fish in there yet. I have pods everywhere, my xenia has grown and is in the process of splitting into 3, chaeto has grown from a little golfball sized bunch to something to measures roughly 12"x12" and is about 1-2" deep, nitrates are at zero. The main tank is lighted with 192watts of PC lights (1x96watt 10000k, 1xactinic), and the fuge is lighted by a 55watt PC light at 6400k. The main tank lights may be upgraded to MH sometime in the future... I'm still looking into that.

-Richer