Live Sand vs. Crushed Coral

[moray345]

Should i get crushed coral or live sand

 

[bobbyzat]

sand. Do a search for it and you will find plenty of reasons why, and also many people trying to convert their crushed coral to sand.

 

[texasranchers]

I have a full bag of CC that I can't give away. I bought it when I was thinking "How Pretty!"

 

[moto757]

crushed coral is nitrate heaven it will only cause more problems in the future

 

[texasranchers]

moto757, you didn't vote at the poll(top of page)

 

[mytank]

Last weekend I completely took down our 80 gallon, which had crushed coral in it and went with the sand. The water is clearer and as for the crushed coral, well I felt funny about throwing it in the trash. So we were relandscaping and lined the french drain thingy in the crushed coral. Another idea is to make a platform under the water faucet in the yard and put the crushed coral in that. Just little ideas.

 

[texasranchers]

mytank, Thanks for the ideas. We already have the rock garden, the cactus garden, the water garden, why not a CCgarden.

 

[sly]

I have CC and while it looks great, I am considering sand. I have 0 nitrates but it accumulates junk easily and frequently needs to be stirred. Because of this I have a very shallow substrate level (1.5inches) to keep the hydrogen sulfide down.

 

[spicyballs]

with sand, just make sure you don't get too small a particle size.. or else you got sand flying all over your tank when fish swim close to it.

 

[scotts]

One way to see which is preferred is to do a search on this site about "switch CC to LS" or something equivalent. You will find many people asking how they can switch without messing up their tank.
Scott

 

[boomper]

I am about to do the switch myself, after having the CC for about a year. Although i had no problems with my water parameters, I have accumulated much rock which makes it EXTREMELY difficult and annoying to vaccum seperately. Definately go with sand right from the start....plus it just looks better.