This past weekend the glassbox said goodbye to the beloved bare bottom (no substrate) method and incorporated a 1-2″ sand substrate. Although a bare bottom system makes maintaining a clean tank extremely easy and simple, I cannot stand coralline algae and to keep the bottom pane clean with a razor blade takes a considerable amount [...]
This past weekend the glassbox said goodbye to the beloved bare bottom (no substrate) method and incorporated a 1-2″ sand substrate. Although a bare bottom system makes maintaining a clean tank extremely easy and simple, I cannot stand coralline algae and to keep the bottom pane clean with a razor blade takes a considerable amount of time. With everything on my plate at the moment it was becoming more and more difficult to keep up with the weekly scrapings… making sand the logical choice.
I spent the past month or so looking at various substrates to find just the right one. I finally decided on Tropic Eden with a 2:1 ratio of Reeflakes to Miniflakes. This combination has a grain size that varies from 4mm to 1mm; heavy enough that there are no snow stoms from strong flow, and small enough for ample flora and fauna. Both the Reef and Mini flakes are also very affordable, a 30lb bag of either will set you back $20. Compared to other popular sands and aragonite based substrates the Tropic Eden was extremely clean.
It took one hour to clean 60lbs of sand. They were then soaked in 0 TDS RODI water overnight to leach out any po4 or other impurities. When added to the tank cloudiness was minimal and within a few hours the tank was back to it’s best with normal water clarity.
I am not sure I will ever go back to bare bottom for this system. With clean glass, the bottom blended in the back panes and photographed horribly. This lack of contrast did not help the aquascape’s depth from front to back either. Now with the sand, the depth is heightened and the tank is much brighter. Although the bottom pane is white on the underside to reflect light back up it… as BB it had 1″ thick plate glass to travel through twice taking away most of the punch. The sand is a much more effective reflector and the tank appears much brighter and I am finding it easier to photograph. The glitter lines are more visible and absolutely beautiful.
The white sand also heightens the effect of the spotlights as shown here from this top down view. 1 Deep Blue Superkaru and 1 Red LED spotlight are all that are on in the above photo, with the arrows showing the respective angles of each.
In addition to the sand, we added a few inverts to touch up the clean up crew. A handful of the following:
- Trochus Snails (Trochus spp.)
- Cerith Snails (Cerithium spp.)
- Scarlet Hermits (Paguristes cadenati)
- Blue Leg Hermits (Clibanarious tricolor)
- Hawaiian Halloween Hermits (Calcinus cf. elegans)
The Hawaiian Hermits were purchased as ”Halloween Hermits” which they are. However, I was thinking they would be Ciliopagurus strigatus. Nonetheless, these guys are colorful and a surprising addition. These are identical to the more common Indo Calcinus elegans, however the coloration is different. The blue bands on the typical C. elegans are a vibrant orange on this morph that is only found in Hawaii. For more colorful Hermits check out this article: Beautiful Hermit Crabs
(L) C. elegans via Wiki. (R) C. cf.elegans via Poe
All the sand and inverts were ordered from Premium Aquatics. Another two thumbs up for Jeremy & Jason.
