Is Live sand required?

[brycewood]

I was always under the impression that if you had Live rock and argonite sand that eventually(within cycle time), you would have life in the sand. Is that not true? Do you need live sand to?
Thanks,
Bryce

 

[snipe]

It def isnt reguired but "everyone" Well mostly everyone. Will say to get it. And I would do like you said get aragonite sand "around 95% and then get alittle amount of live sand or better yet get it from a fellow reefer it will have more stuff in it that the live sand you buy wont have.

 

[kcobain111]

Live San definetly wouldn't hurt but my tank was cycled with about 70lbs of live rock with just arag sand and everything is going fine.

 

[swnewb]

Yeah, get regular sand and seed it with a few pounds of live sand to jump start it. Just like using base rock with your live rock, eventially it will become alive on its own.

 

[maeistero]

took my 55 about 3-4 months to turn ar sand live. that's with over 120lbs live rock, so i kinda overkilled on that. but now it is working really well, there's tons of shiznit living in the sand. i've actually sprouted some little quarter inch clams that are everywhere in the sand now. worms, copepods, and other stuff i'll figure out later sometime.
if you can get a bit of live sand out of an established tank it'd go a lot quicker though. i'd do that, my lfs will sell a couple cups of ls cheap as heck.