Sand for a refugium? Will this work?

[fishgeek01]

:happyfish When i was in north carolina last year on family vacation i took about 100 pounds of fine grain sand home with me to use in a sand and shell table that i had built, well obviously i didnt need the full 100 puonds for that so i have a lot left over. It is a light gray color, and very fine. My question is will this sand work for a dsb in a fug or should i go with the conventional reef sands you find at your lfs's? It has been rinsed and is clean of debris, there were no shells in the area that i collected it from so it is only sand. It is fully 100% natural, not that other sands aren't but it was taken straight off the beach. I am setting the fug up in about a week so i need an answer pretty quick so i can decide if i need to expand my budget to include sand.

 

[hemicj]

i woldnt use it could have toxins. i would recoomend using some form of fuge mud. i used mineral mud 1gal. jug from marine depot and have had great succes mixed with some sand from tank. quickly had many copepods/ampipods and a ton of tiny starfish. also corals have never looked better. algea grows great in it

 

[fishgeek01]

The sand has been rinsed a dozen times with sea water and has also been sitting dry in my garage for about 18 months now, do you think that it will still contain toxins, also can i mix the fuge mud with the sand can the mineral mud be a dsb, does it need to be kept seperate from the sand this is my first fug, been doing salt for 3 years + without one, figured it was time to upgrade.

 

[cgrant]

i would not use the sand you got on vacation, it could have suntan oil, etc.
Think about when rinsing a pan that has oil in it, very hard to get the oil out unless you use a chemical cleaner (like dish wash soap) to clean the pan.
I would throw out the sand from vacation or use it for something else.
I have never tried mixing miracle mud and sand so not sure?

 

[hemicj]

i have mud and sand mixed in fuge about 1 - 1 1/2 deep no problems. added mud about year ago. i would defintally say go buy some live sand also no telling what could be in sand you harvested

 

[supermanvx]

IMHO mud is a waste of money...a nice deep sand bed..like 3-4 inches is extremely good for a refugium...also IMO its not the soil that helps it grow. its the lighting.

 

[chipmaker]

You can use the sand. Wash it in chlorox (10 percent to a gal of water)if your paranoid, allow to drip most water out, and then rinse again in water treated with a dechlor, and allow to dry. Its fine to use.

 

[hemicj]

the mineral mud has ha high nutrient content good for mangroves which i have in fuge also really noticed increase in pods within a month or 2 after adding i guess eveyone has own likes/dislikes and expeinces cuase we all dont have exact same setup