Can We Cover The CC Up With LS

[brendac]

My family and I are very serious about putting LS in my 125g Aquarium... Goodness we have this thing all set up full of water and LR No fish as of yet in it... The sad part is we have CC in the bottom instead of LS. The reason we want to change it is cause everyone seems to go with LS and stay away from CC. Well my question is this: Why cant we buy a decent amounf of LS and cover the CC up so that no left over fish food and waste get to the CC. As long as there is a good layer down of LS over the CC... Could We... Would that be OK?

 

[promisetbg]

The CC will rise up to the top and defeats the purpose of a nice sandbed with small grains.Sand lends more to available surface area for bacteria, and allows for benthic organisms to live within it. CC has sharp edges, so it will have less life, and it also tends to have coraline algae growth which gives the substrate a dirty appearance. Detritus gets trapped in it easily as well. With sand you can get snails such as nassarius, cerith, and a fighting conch to help keep it clean.

 

[cofishguy]

I had the same question. My LFS said he uses CC for the first layer then two more layers of two different kinds of sands. It basically amounts to about 1/3 CC and the other 2/3 sand. He says he has good results doing this. I'm still curing my live rock in a plastic container until I set up my main tank. But, I've too been wondering about whether or not I should use the CC. Everyone here seems to say its a no-no, or at least causes too many problems comparied to sand only.

 

[thomas712]

The end result here is that it is very possible that you will still have to vaccum that crushed coral if it traps detritus, then you will also wind up sucking sand up as well. It is also possible that by doing so that you may release some anerobic bacteria if it builds up in the sand bed, something you really don't want to do.
Thomas