Play sand becoming live/how long

[murph]

Once again there seems to be a wide range of opinions. One of my LFS says LR will almost immediately seed a sand bed. Any way I know have about 175 pounds of sand between fuge sump and tank.
Main tank has 100 with various degrees of depth 30g fuge has 3 inch and 20g sump has a couple. I guess opinions vary on this according to what definition of "live" people are using.

 

[hot883]

Originally Posted by Murph
Once again there seems to be a wide range of opinions. One of my LFS says LR will almost immediately seed a sand bed. Any way I know have about 175 pounds of sand between fuge sump and tank.
Main tank has 100 with various degrees of depth 30g fuge has 3 inch and 20g sump has a couple. I guess opinions vary on this according to what definition of "live" people are using.
IMO the LS is live now being seeded by the LR, BUT, as far as being really crawling and and able to support alot, it will take about 2 weeks or so giving the organisms a chance to reproduce and not being hunted. Meaning, can it support a sea star sand sifter NO!

 

[murph]

Thats a good point. However I was wanting to add some kind of sand stirring team this weekend. I was thinking along the lines of a small Brittle star or two. As far as the fuge I figured I would just stir the top eight inch or so by hand on water change daysl The fuge sand is about a month old now. I had a nice pod pop starting in the fuge but had to house the main tanks occupants in it over night while I made the substrate change and probably don't have to give you more than one guess what happened to the pod population.
Any other suggestions are quite welcome. I am from the cc days so the sand thing is a whole new ball game for me. I must say though the sand looks much better, so as far as aesthetics go I am pleased so far.

 

[jdragunas]

i was told that brittle stars don't really stir the sand, and they rarely burrow in it. They mostly hide in the LR, but they are cool to have.
You could get about 20-30 nassarius snails. They burrow in the sand as soon as you put them in there... as a matter of fact, i've only seen 3 of mine since i put them in a month ago...
Jenn