sand bed

[denny80688]

Well now that I know where to get my play sand how much live sand should I mix in? 50% live to 50% play sand or can I stretch the live sand farther then that? ALso whats the best way to clean the play sand before putting it in the tank? Hose? boil? I have no idea.

 

[bigarn]

IMO more LS would be better. I'd boil the play sand.

 

[hookedonreefs]

You don't need to clean it. Just put it into your tank. And, if you're getting LR and want to keep cost down, you don't NEED live sand. The rock will seed the sand pretty quickly.

 

[denny80688]

hmm never thought of that... Since I am transferringf rom CC to LS should I mix any of the old bed into the sand or I saw some people put the CC in a sock or something and put it int the tank for a while? why is that??? I never had LR or LS before so I dont think that applys to me.

 

[rich460]

how big is your tank and do you want a dsb the reason i ask is you can get 25lbs of ls on ---- for 39 bucks thats with shipping thats cheap i dont know how much playsand is but you might want to cheak it out.

 

[hookedonreefs]

Let's skip back to square on for a second. What type of tank, and what is your livestock like. Also, dsb or ssb.
And, rich - play sand is about 5 bucks for 50 lbs. Given it would take some time to get seeded from the LR, but I just put in all southdown and I have tons of life in my sandbed now (just over a year later). It beats any price for LS (IMHO).

 

[rich460]

thats cool if you have a big tank go with the play sand but if you have a small tank like i do just get the ls off ----

 

[denny80688]

well its either gonna be the 55gal I am moving into my house from my moms house where its setup now as fish only. Or a 135gal I am trying to make a deal on. Hopefully its the 135... either way its going to be FOWLR when its done and ust going for a sand substrate not a deep sand bed.

 

[dskidmore]

I would get the smallest ammount of live sand that's worth the shipping cost. You'll get all the bacteria you need from the live rock, but some of the sand critters you'll miss out on. You want all the little detrivores, sand stirrers, and who knows what larve that are in the sand.

 

[rich460]

do a search for livesand.there is a website that sells a pint of ls for 9.99 they said it has mini brittlestars in it so good luck.