Sand/skimmer pre buy questions

[darbo]

I am starting my list of items to buy for my house warming present to myself.
I am building a new house and going to get a new tank up and running. So please forgive me if I ask alot of stupid questions.
I was looking in my LFS today and seen a new tank he set up with a mix of black and white sand. It looked very good. Is there any reason 99% of the tanks have all white sand?
I am also looking for a 200$ give or take skimmer. ASM comes to mind any other ideas will help too.
Also a light set up for under 300 $ for a 90 gal tank would be helpful too.
Darbo

 

[carter3]

not sure of the band but I would buy on line instead of lfs because it is sooo much cheaper. for instance my wet day 165.00 on line 75 - 100 my skimmer 75.00 on line 40-50, and that's the cheap brand. When I do my upgrade I'm shopping on line for now on. Wet dry by pro clear can't remember skimmer.
I'm don't know about the sand issue would like to know my self it looks so much nicer.
Are you building your tank in wall those are so cool?
I'm looking to upgrade light also.

 

[darbo]

Still looking for help on some input on a skimmer lights and sand question above.
Darbo

 

[reefforbrains]

Pure personal preference on the substrate color. Carib-Sea make about a dozen different colors. Half dozen of them are live in the bag.
99% are off white because thats what you see when diving.
Def buy online- saves you around 30% right off. if you dont mind used equip, the classifieds here and on the big board really can save you some money.

 

[petjunkie]

White sand will reflect light back up into the aquarium, getting it to lower corals. Plain black can look good but it also need to be cleaned a lot or little pieces of deitrus will show up really bad. The most common kind of black and white sand sold ends up with big black chunks for some reason. I would mix that black tahatian sand with a separate white sand if you want that look.