live sand

[maxpain]

Where is the best place to buy live sand from. This site's live sand looks good but they are sold out. My lfs sells it for $4 a pound, which is way too much. etropicals.com also sells live sand for a much cheaper price then here, but its a different kind. Do any of you know good places to buy from/stay away from?

 

[karajay]

The LS on this site looks much better than any other I've seen. They are not shipping due to the holidays. You should be able to order it in a few days though (probably the 5th).
Also, you shouldn't post a competitors website. A shark will be coming to get ya'.

 

[maxpain]

Dont get me wrong I am very loyal to this site over all others, including my lfs. I will wait for them to come back into stock on this site then. I will be removing the cc , setting up my back up tank and transfering my current fish in the mean time to be ready to put the ls in my current tank. I cant wait, also is 80pounds good for a 55 gal tank?

 

[fishfood]

are you looking to go with the standard DSB? If so then 80 lbs might not be enough to get to the 4 inches or so that it would require. I just put 40 lbs of sand in my 26 bowfront and that barely gave me 3 inches or so. I could fit 2 and a half to 3 of those tanks into a standard 55 gal tank. You are in NY. Look around for some southdown or i guess it is called yardright sand now. Should be able to find it at Home Depot. If not you might be able to order it on line at a better price then live sand and go half and half.

 

[atf88]

80 lbs should B good, i have 60 in my 55 and it gave me about 3 in. it wouldnt hurt to add more tho

 

[fishfood]

here is a calculation to figure out how much sand you need:
Tank Length X Tank width X Desired depth of sand Bed X .0579 = LBS of sand necessary
For my 55 gal tub that is 36 by 18 i would need 150lbs of sand to get 4 inches and 112lbs for 3 inches.
For the standard 55 gal tank 48x13 at 3 inches it equals 108lbs and 144lbs at 4 inches..
So buy two 40lb bags of yardright, if your local home depot has them they run somewhere around $3. and then get 30 to 40 lbs of live sand, you could even go with less live sand and just seed all the dry sand with 10 to 20 lbs of live sand. Thats what i did.

 

[maxpain]

So I would want to have a 4 inch bed of sand?

 

[fishfood]

I would go no less then 3 if you are looking for the benefits of a functioning DSB. More is better but it also takes up space in your tank. My point is look for southdown. You should find it up there in NY and if not you can maybe get down to PA or NJ and get some. It will save you cash that you can put towards other things and over time it will become live. I've gone all southdown before and just added 5 lbs of live sand to seed it. Its up to you. You could also get some other local reefers to give you a little sandwich bag full of sand to seed it.

 

[maxpain]

Cool thanks for the info, you helped me lots and saved me big $ too