live sand and crushed coral
- Thread starter fish46
- Start date
uberlink
Active Member
Ditto. Go all sand. I'm battling this right now. The bozo at my local LFS pushed me to do a mixture of live sand and shell/gravel/crushed coral aggregate because it would help my calcium levels. That may well be true, but it's ugly (as the bigger chunks are constantly working their way to the top) and seems to trap a lot of crap. I'm now netting out the stuff as it works its way to the surface. Save yourself the trouble and go all sand from the beginning. If you're looking to save money, to half live sand and half non-live sand. Ask around for good options on what to use for the non-live portion.
usinkit
Member
Food becomes trapped in the crush coral and therefore decays and turns into nitrates. If you vacum the crushed coral during waterchanges you can cut down on the waste build but with having sand in their too you will be sucking some sand up and disturbing the benificial bacteria in the sand causing more problems!!
sly
Active Member
No system will be perfect. Whatever is a strength about one system may be a weakness to another. You can virtually eliminate nitrate problems with CC systems if you have an extremely shallow substrate. This way detrius will not settle down into lower levels of the substrate which will then turn into both nitrate and hydrogen sulfide. Then you can invest in a good cleanup crew which will keep the CC clean. I've run CC for about 4 years and I have always had 0 ppm Nitrates.
T
thomas712
Guest
Originally Posted by usinkit
with cushed coral you will have a build up of nitrates in your tank.
All depends on your maintenance habits, depth of crushed coral, feeding habits, bio load etc...
Can we agree on that Sly?
with cushed coral you will have a build up of nitrates in your tank.
All depends on your maintenance habits, depth of crushed coral, feeding habits, bio load etc...
Can we agree on that Sly?