Bare bottom tanks and rock work

BananaHammox

Non-member
Hey Ya’ll,

I’ve always had (still have) sand beds in my tanks, but want to try a bare bottom out in an extra ~120 G tank I have. Should I lay anything between the glass and rocks??The fear of a rock falling and cracking tank is a major concern!!

Thoughts?
 
I mean I’ve heard of people using egg crate, but that seems like a wicked detritus trap.
The idea of the egg crate is to spread the footpoint of the rocks and minimize points stress. If using flat rock from like BRS there isn't any stress points from the rock on the glass.
 
Ive been running barebottom on my 65g for a couple years with nothing and been fine. The glass on big tanks is extremely thick so breaking through would requires some big rocks to fall hard in my opinion
 
I’m running starboard over the bottom but I should’ve gone with the black. It makes the tank to bright in white but eventually all the coraline will confer it anyway
 
I had originally put my rock directly on the bare bottom glass, but I was also worried about pressure points where lots of rock weight was sitting on the glass at single sharp points of the bases of the rocks. I also didnt want to have egg crate in my display. So, I bought some of wide-based frag plugs (https://www.bulkreefsupply.com/10-pack-aquadome-frag-mounts-reefsmart.html), and glued them to the bottom of my big rocks, and these support the bottom of my rockwork. Now, my rocks have little feet that are only visible if you get down and look for them. This serves two purposes: first it distributes the rock weight so there are no sharp points hitting the glass, and second it allows me to siphon out the organic crud that accumulates under the rocks.
 
For me I always have used sand but since I always keep pistols the rule has been to put the rock down first then the sand so as the pistol digs out the sand the rocks don’t shift. Wouldn’t the pressure points of the rock work be similar to bare bottom in this case? Never had problems and the pistol definitely zeroes out the sand under each rock as he shifts it around
 
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