So You Want To Go Barebottom But You Have Questions...

[satch]

How do you keep your pH constant without a crushed coral or a sustrate like it to buffer the pH? Also do you have to add a calcium addittive?

[mac77]

Will a bare bottom tank help me in dealing with green and brown algae? I have problems with algae, they cover the whole bottom of the tank in 2 to 3 days after I vacuum it when I do water changes. The whole entire crushed coral bottom gets basically black in color. What can I do stop this algae taking over of the whole bottom.
Also will changing the bottom to sand, ( really fine sand ) help in cutting this algae build up? Any recomendation will be greatly appreciated.

[Birdlady]

First question,

Most folks have to add calcium and/or pH buffers even with sand. The sand only breaks down after the pH has dropped to a bit lower than we would normally keep our tanks. Depending on the animals you keep, some need to add more, others less. I have clams and stony corals. I add a good bit

Second question,

Switching to sand probably won't help your algae problems. What it may do, is allow you to get propers substrate maintaining critters, eg. fighting conch, ceriths snails etc.

I found the biggest aid in keeping my sand clean was flow, flow, flow! Of course , the sand can blow around But I found a happy place between blowing sand and clean sand!