colored sand as a substrate

jawfishray

jawfishray

Member
Ok I looked into this process and the color is baked into the sand grain itself, bonding it. No color fading. I have samples from the two best colored sand companies to put them to the test.
Kinda interesting thought even if it is not about corals or other such. Kinda cool.
Ray
 
clarkiiboi

clarkiiboi

Active Member
I have seen a few tanks with black sand, and it does look nice. The name of the sand escapes me right now, but maybe another member will chime in. I dont know much about it, but the one I am thinking of is safe to use, as far as I know. Maybe a search for "black sand" will get some results :thinking: Anywho, a bump for ya.
 
jawfishray

jawfishray

Member
Thanks for the bump. I have black sand on the way. It would look most cool I think. The real issue will be the texture and grain size/form.
I do not want a coarse grain for my sand sifters.
Ray
 
squidd

squidd

Active Member
I ran the "Tahitian Black" sand in my 20 Nano...
Looks cool, but it is a P.I.T.A to maintain...It's a "fine"sand (crushed obsidian) but has sharp edges rather than the "oolitic"(egg shaped) aragonite sands...
Didn't seem to bother the corals, shrooms, worms or feather dusters though...
It doesn't "pack" or make a "sealed" layer like the aragonite sand either...this means detrius "sinks" into it like it would CC but on a finer level and if you stir or disturb it this half decomposed manure gets re-released in the water colume...
The wost part for me was the detrius being a "lighter" color would show up big time between cleanings...so yes I had to siphon/vacume regularly to keep it clean...Fortunately I ran a 50% sump/refugium with aragonite substrate to maintain a biological base...
Also Not being an aragonite based substrate you will get no "buffering" action from the sand for whatever that's worth...
But it looks cool...:D
I don't have any really "great" pics of that tank but this will give you an idea...
 
drkdweller

drkdweller

Member
i also have the Tahitian Black sand, but im not having the detrius problems the tank has been running for a year so i got lots of critters in the sand that clean it.
squidd what kind of sand siffers do you have.
i have the black sand on both a 75 and 20 reef tanks
and i think it dose have buffering ill look in to that today.
 
jawfishray

jawfishray

Member
your corals looks very nice indeed
I have to admit, the black is somewhat less dramatic than I had thought it would be. Is this one of those cases where in person is much different?
Thanks for the image!
(by the way, how do you post images? I tried the above linking icon but it did not offer a browse function as most sites do.)
Ray
 
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