We all love having the look of a bright white sand bed, and the way it reflects light to give our reef tanks that tropical look. But over the last decade it has definitely become clear that in many cases, that deep sand bed can have some drawbacks to keeping a healthy reef.
Between trapping nutrients, scratching glass by getting caught in magnets, and generally blowing around in the flow rates that makes for a healthy reef, sand can be a a liability in a reef tank for a a multitude of reasons. But what can we do if we want that tropical beach look and want ripping flow to keep the tank clean and the corals happy?
Jay Sperandio of Ecotech Marine tried his hand at one solution using epoxy resin to make a ‘sand sandwich’. In this technique a layer of sand is caught in between two layers of epoxy to look like a sand bed, but won’t trap nutrients or blow around in appropriate water flow.
Making this type of faux sand bed is quite simple and Jay pulled it off rather well on his first try. If you wanted to try your hand at this we suggest trying out a small scale trial run before committing to making a full size version for your reef tank.
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