Sand question
- Thread starter dsbdude
- Start date
coralreefer
Active Member
i used aragonite substrate
bennyhill
Member
First thing first :you need to think about what fish your looking at. Some fish like Gold Head Sleeper Goby sift sand (take big mouth fulls and blow it out there gills) need fine grade sands not coarse grades . Something to think about .Theres tons of brands out there .think about if you want to do fish only ,fish with live rock ,or reef I used ARAG-ALIVE REEF SAND fine grade.just make shure you use aquarium sand not the stuff you played in the sand box with ( sound dumb but seen people rush starting a tank and use it llol)
Very Coarse grade is 2.0- 6.0 mm grain size,Coarse grade is 2.0-5.5 mm grain size,Fine grade is .50- 1.85 mm grain size and range inbetween.
hope this helps
Very Coarse grade is 2.0- 6.0 mm grain size,Coarse grade is 2.0-5.5 mm grain size,Fine grade is .50- 1.85 mm grain size and range inbetween.
hope this helps
dsbdude
Member
ok.. i want a 1-2 inch sand bed for a 135 reef tank, no sand sifters, and least maintenance possible. I'm just going to have a few corals and lr in my tank. My fish/verts will be blue reef chromis, false perc clowns, tangs, cleaner chrimp, and a starfish later. Can anybody help me?
dsbdude
Member
Uh.....i was kind of hoping for an answer but whatever.
When i put the word "bump" it means that i just posted just to get my thread at the the top of the post list so people can see it and answer it. I did this because my thread was on the 3 or 4th page and usually nobody reads threads anymore when they're way back there
When i put the word "bump" it means that i just posted just to get my thread at the the top of the post list so people can see it and answer it. I did this because my thread was on the 3 or 4th page and usually nobody reads threads anymore when they're way back there
dpeter51
Member
A couple things to consider:
1. Color: light sand can get algae and detritus in there and not look so white, black sand might not look so good if white pieces of rock and coral get mixed in over time.
2. Size: if you plan to "gravel vac" detritus out of the substrate, you won't want super-fine sand because it will get sucked up.
I'm not experienced enough to talk specifics about whether or not you would want to disturb the sand-bed based on its thickness, but I generally understand that one approach is to use a deep sand-bed to encourage anaerobic bacteria to grow and convert nitrates to harmless components and in this case you want to leave the substrate alone when cleaning the tank.
I'm using pretty fine grain size because I like the way it looks, but vacuuming it would be a problem. I am leaving it pretty thin (like 1/2" to 1") because I don't want it to get clogged with bad stuff. To clean, I just stir it up a bit to get the junk floating around in the water, then I vacuum the water out at about the middle of the tank (height-wise, I mean).
1. Color: light sand can get algae and detritus in there and not look so white, black sand might not look so good if white pieces of rock and coral get mixed in over time.
2. Size: if you plan to "gravel vac" detritus out of the substrate, you won't want super-fine sand because it will get sucked up.
I'm not experienced enough to talk specifics about whether or not you would want to disturb the sand-bed based on its thickness, but I generally understand that one approach is to use a deep sand-bed to encourage anaerobic bacteria to grow and convert nitrates to harmless components and in this case you want to leave the substrate alone when cleaning the tank.
I'm using pretty fine grain size because I like the way it looks, but vacuuming it would be a problem. I am leaving it pretty thin (like 1/2" to 1") because I don't want it to get clogged with bad stuff. To clean, I just stir it up a bit to get the junk floating around in the water, then I vacuum the water out at about the middle of the tank (height-wise, I mean).