Clean up crew for crushed coral
- Thread starter fla pat
- Start date
T
thomas712
Guest
It was always a bummer to clean the crushed coral in my tank (back then a 55 gallon). I was sucking up pods, worms, and when I didn't see the snail or crab it caused problems in the syphon. High nitrates, bad biological zone,...etc...
I would still go with scarlet hermit crabs, and perhaps a dragon or banded goby to help keep the crushed coral turned over.
I would also suggest doing some searches on crushed coral vs. sand and consider a substrate change to sand.
Thomas
I would still go with scarlet hermit crabs, and perhaps a dragon or banded goby to help keep the crushed coral turned over.
I would also suggest doing some searches on crushed coral vs. sand and consider a substrate change to sand.
Thomas
ka0z4allu
Member
I second that about researching sand versus CC. I started my tank out with CC due to the fact that CC was popular back when I had my first tank which was 10 years ago and because I had not found this message board. But I have since changed to sand and I am very very happy! My CC went outside around one of the trees in my yard as it makes a better yard decoration than it does an aquarium substrate in my opinion.
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thomas712
Guest
Why change from CC to SSB or DSB?
Most of us will not use crushed coral because it is a large substrate that traps the fish waste and uneaten food that has to be vacuumed before it creates nitrates, which it will anyway. Crushed coral does not provide a very good biological zone, and many tanks are setup with CC from the get go through lack of knowledge or because it is the only substrate that an LFS sells and tells you that it is all you need, using a selling point of CC has buffering power. I have personally battled nitrates over 100 ppm during my days of CC and UGF doing frequent large water changes. So many of us have been there and had high nitrates, did a water change to lower them and they were back in a couple of days. CC has sharp edges, which is undesirable for inverts, like anemones walking around, pods or worms. No getting around it CC is high maintenance and can lead to poor water quality, frequent maintenance, sick livestock, algae blooms and more.
Sand on the other hand has more benefits. These include having far more surface area thereby making it able to handle a higher bio load of bacteria. It is less dangerous to your infauna and has a more natural look in the tank. If going with a DSB Deep Sand Bed you can have other benefits as well like finishing the denitrification or providing sand sifting, burrowing, or tunneling fish and critters a place to play. The denitrification process predominantly occurs in deeper substrates and in areas of stagnant flow where oxygen levels are depressed. And this is why deep sand beds are effective as a nitrogen export mechanism. As water slowly diffuses deeper, aerobic organisms strip all available oxygen for respiration. In the deep, oxygen-deprived layers, denitrifying anaerobes are given the opportunity to convert nitrogen compounds into nitrogenous gases, which escape via tiny bubble out of the aquarium. I believe this process can also work on a limited basis in shallow sand beds. My sand bed is no more than 2 inches deep in some spots.
So what sand do I use to build my sand bed?
The answer here is aragonite sand. Many hobbyists have found that Southdown, Yard right or its apparent new name of old castle sand works very well for reef aquariums. This is due to it being calcium carbonate based, and with an excellent grain sizes makes for a good functioning sand bed. 1/8mm is very fine> 1/256mm to 1/16mm is considered silt, and less that> 1/256mm is considered clay.
Southdown seems to mostly contains very fine to silt size particles, and maybe a few larger than 1/8mm.
Other aragonite sands are available through many LFS. If it is aragonite it is good.
Most of us will not use crushed coral because it is a large substrate that traps the fish waste and uneaten food that has to be vacuumed before it creates nitrates, which it will anyway. Crushed coral does not provide a very good biological zone, and many tanks are setup with CC from the get go through lack of knowledge or because it is the only substrate that an LFS sells and tells you that it is all you need, using a selling point of CC has buffering power. I have personally battled nitrates over 100 ppm during my days of CC and UGF doing frequent large water changes. So many of us have been there and had high nitrates, did a water change to lower them and they were back in a couple of days. CC has sharp edges, which is undesirable for inverts, like anemones walking around, pods or worms. No getting around it CC is high maintenance and can lead to poor water quality, frequent maintenance, sick livestock, algae blooms and more.
Sand on the other hand has more benefits. These include having far more surface area thereby making it able to handle a higher bio load of bacteria. It is less dangerous to your infauna and has a more natural look in the tank. If going with a DSB Deep Sand Bed you can have other benefits as well like finishing the denitrification or providing sand sifting, burrowing, or tunneling fish and critters a place to play. The denitrification process predominantly occurs in deeper substrates and in areas of stagnant flow where oxygen levels are depressed. And this is why deep sand beds are effective as a nitrogen export mechanism. As water slowly diffuses deeper, aerobic organisms strip all available oxygen for respiration. In the deep, oxygen-deprived layers, denitrifying anaerobes are given the opportunity to convert nitrogen compounds into nitrogenous gases, which escape via tiny bubble out of the aquarium. I believe this process can also work on a limited basis in shallow sand beds. My sand bed is no more than 2 inches deep in some spots.
So what sand do I use to build my sand bed?
The answer here is aragonite sand. Many hobbyists have found that Southdown, Yard right or its apparent new name of old castle sand works very well for reef aquariums. This is due to it being calcium carbonate based, and with an excellent grain sizes makes for a good functioning sand bed. 1/8mm is very fine> 1/256mm to 1/16mm is considered silt, and less that> 1/256mm is considered clay.
Southdown seems to mostly contains very fine to silt size particles, and maybe a few larger than 1/8mm.
Other aragonite sands are available through many LFS. If it is aragonite it is good.
T
thomas712
Guest
Every time you do a water change, depending on how often you feed. I used to do it every two weeks, sometimes more depending on how high my nitrates got. Don't get me wrong if you do not have problems with nitrates and crushed coral works for you then keep it, some people like it. Its just my personal opinion that aragonite sand is soooooooooo much better, seems most think the same thing.
Thomas
Thomas
jlem
Active Member
Originally posted by Mina_40
Reading through posts on the cc vs sand makes me wonder what the concensus is on what I have in my tank.
I started my tank with a mixture of crushed coral and live sand.
Now I am wondering if that was a mistake?
If you choose to remove your C/C then use a fish net to seperate the two. The sand will fall through the net while the C/C stays in the net.
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thomas712
Guest
Originally posted by Mina_40
I started my tank with a mixture of crushed coral and live sand.
Now I am wondering if that was a mistake?
In my humble opinion yes it was a mistake.
If you post your test scores perhaps it might show you that it was. All depends on how course your crushed coral was or is, feeding habits, bio load...etc...
You see the crushed coral will rise to the top and the sand to the bottom. The crushed coral will still trap detritus and need to be vaccumed eventually, it will hold the decaying matter and may cause high nitrates. The sand might still be able to process some of the nitrates depending on how deep it is. now if you go to vaccum the CC then you may disturb the anerobic areas of the sand that may exist beneath, these anerobic areas may contain hydrogen sulfide and can cause the tank to crash if desturbed.
Mixing the two will work against each other or they will not allow each to work to the best potential that they could.
Weighing the pros and cons Sand vs. Crushed coral, Sand makes more sence.
Thomas
Jlem----drat I didn't hit the button fast enough!
jlem
Active Member
Originally posted by FLA Pat
I thought the CC helped buffer the ph.
Ph needs to drop really low to dissolve the C/C and be usefull as a buffer. So C/C can buffer, but not at the High PH that we keep our tanks and at the PH that our sand beds produce.. Sand beds have lower PH zones the farther down you go and actually can dissolve the Aragonite sand slowly.