Live sand over the Crushed corals

[barracuda]

Hi all,
i'm thinking of adding a live sand to my 110 gal tank. It's currently running with crushed corals substrate. May i add the LS over the CC and what is the minimum of ls should i add? Of course i will take out the animals and the live rock and siphon the waste out of the crushed corals before adding the ls.
Thanks,
Dima.

 

[azonic]

From what i've heard, the ls will eventually get sifted down to the bottom underneath the cc. If it were me i would get rid of the cc altogether and go with all ls or use a sugar sized sand with the ls on top of that. Anyone agree or disagree?

 

[fishguy]

I think it would be best to get rid of the cc all together too. As stated above it will get sifted through, and being that you would still have the cc detritus would still get trapped. And if you don't siphon it out it will cause an ammonia spike. No problem just siphon right? Wrong! Siphoning the detritus will only bring out the sand along with it. In my opinion it's just not worth it. But ask 10 different people and get 10 different answers HTH
Happy fish keepin'

 

[jim672]

Don't keep LS on top of CC....not a good strategy for any number of reasons.
Syphon your CC out and the detritus comes out with it. Then you can gently lay your LS in.
It is some work but I think you'll be very happy with the way your tank looks with the LS.
Enjoy!
Jim

 

[barracuda]

the ls is very expensive here. I just made a calculation. For 110gal tank i need about 120 lb of live sand, which i have to buy for about $350. It's kind of expensive. May i mix it with other sand. A regular beach sand for example. If yes, how (50/50 or else?)

 

[azonic]

What i did was buy 60 pounds of caribsea sugar size argonite for my 38 gallon tank. It cost me $90 CANADIAN for 60 pounds. I'm going to try to get a scoop of substrate from another aquarium to try and "bring the sand to life". Eventually it will become live sand so i've been told anyway. I chose this path instead of paying over $300 for ls.

 

[jim672]

Yes, you can "seed" your dsb with ls. You'd need way less than 50/50....a healthy coating to cover your other sand would be fine.
You asked if regular "beach sand" could be used. NO. Beach sand may have all kinds of contaminats in it that you really don't want in your tank. Buy a high-quality sand like CaribeSea or SouthDown.
Do a search on this site for "southdown" and you'll get lots of good info.
Jim

 

[joe's reefer]

make sure ur ls is deeper than ur cc because the ls will eventually go under the cc

 

[lubbockfishdude]

That brings up a good point...what if you poured in more sand than cc. The sand would sift down but if it is more than the cc, you would never see the cc, right? I am thinking of doing the cc/sand thing and this feedback is really good. I love the way my rocks are right now and would love to not have to change everything around. Thoughts?

 

[ruaround]

Go to your local Home Depot and see if they have Southdown, if they dont quikrete playground sand is fine. It runs about $5.99 for a 50 lb bag.

 

[nm reef]

Personally I'd avoid a mixture of cc and finer grain sands. There are sources for sand that could be used then add ls of your choice to seed it. I've used a combination of carib sea sand types and natures ocean LS in my reef. My fish only systems have some carib sea sand/quick crete sand/Natures ocean ls. I'd say a mix of 20% ls to 80% assorted grain sands would work fine. Maybe even less of the LS will work.

 

[justinl]

For the love of Buddah please don't put your sand on top of crushed coral. I made this mistake more than a year ago and one day wondered why my nitrates were skyrocketing. The cc is a very bad trap for uneaten food/poop and when you pour sand on top of it, you trap that stuff below. Also, the finer your sand bed, the better it will work.
Because crushed coral tends to be "chunkier" it leaves space for air and water thus preventing anaerobic bacteria from living. Anaerobic bacteria is bacteria which converts nitrate to harmless free nitrogen and which lives in the absence of oxygen. That's why a lot of people use oolitic or southdown sand because of it's fine grain texture which promotes the growth and functioning of anaerobic bacteria. As soon as I got rid of my crushed coral and replaced it with a mixture of oolitic sand and fiji pink sand my nitrates dropped noticeably.
See if you can find southdown sand or some other playsand to use. If not, go with mostly oolitic sand. You can get away with a shallower bed by using mostly this sand and mixing it with another reef sand like fiji pink.
You might think you're saving money now by going the cheaper route and putting sand over cc, but in the long run you'll end up saving yourself a lot of trouble and frustration.
You don't need to buy all live sand also. Get mostly dead sand and seed it with some live sand from somone's tank (I have some for sale by the way) or from SWF.com. You can also buy a detrivore kit from Inland Aquatics which will help out greatly.

 

[guppy_puppy1]

Have a 46 bow, added platsand with ls on top. So far no problem with it sfting to bottom, but hate cleaning, scratches to easy. Good luck.

 

[ezhawk]

A few of you have mentioned using playsand instead of specialty sand. I bought some after I heard about this money saving idea from another post. However, the brand my local Home Depot had was Basalite. Its a silica based sand, is this safe to use? Any thing special need to be done before adding it to the tank?

 

[justinl]

While not the most desireable sand to use, it can be put in a marine tank. I would suggest washing it first to get rid of as much of the silt/silica as you can before you put it into your tank.

 

[kris walker]

Someone mentioned above about the whole deepness of sand vs CC when mixing. IMO, this is really the key. If you sand bed is at least the same thickness as your existing CC bed, then if you pour the sand onto the CC, only *some* of the sand will make its way down into the spaces between the CC grains. But that is it. It will not go under the entire CC bed, bringing the CC to the top. It is a gravity driven falling thing, not a sifting thing. So basically a bunch of sand will be left on top if there is enough sand.
Now, if you go cleaning your sand bed after putting it on top of the CC, then you are asking for trouble, since you are now aggitating the system creating a sifting condition.
kris

 

[mrolfe]

I ADDED LIVE SAND TO MY REEF TANK AND WITHIN 1 MONTH IT HAD ALL EITHER SIFTED DOWN UNDER THE CC OR HAD BEEN REMOVED WHILE I WAS CLEANING THE TANK. I WOULD NOT USE IT AGAIN BECAUSE IT TENDS TO GET ALL OVER THE LIVE ROCK WHEN FISH STIR IT UP AND REALLY DID NOT SEEM TO BENEFIT MY TANK. I ALSO HAD AN INCREASE IN ALGAE ON THE GLASS DUE TO WASTE BEING HARDER TO REMOVE.

 

[krusk]

ppl have try to mix 20% live sand and 80% play sand for econnomy purposes. Live sand better place on top of play sand.

 

[barracuda]

Ok, i agree with all of u about removing the cc and putting the live sand + play sand. The only problem is that here we don't have Home depot, play sand or "southdown" stuff. The only thing that we have for sure is Nature's Ocean bio active live aragonite wich costs a $60 per pack (20 lb).I need about 120 lb for 110 gal tank. Today i spoke with LFS and the salesman told me they have a grounded cc, but a grain size a bit larger than that bio-active stuff. He called it aragonite. Is it possible or he's just trying to sell me a wrong thing?
I live a 5 minutes from Mediterenian sea and 4 hours drive from the coral reefs of Red Sea. If it will be possible may i use the real stuff, i mean directly from the sea?
Dima.

 

[jim672]

Dima,
I didn't realize before that we were having an international "conversation"!
I don't know about the finely crushed CC. If it's labeled aragonite it should be okay to use.
I would strongly recommend against using anything directly out of the sea or ocean. There's too good a chance of some type of contaminate (you know, oil spill, someone's sewage, garbage, etc.)that is in too small a proportion to effect the ocean but may have a devastating effect on your tank.
Jim