sand questions.

[JRF.]

I am looking into a sand bed for my tank instead of crushed coral. I saw some posts with a black sand instead of the normal white is there any differences besides the obvious (color)?

[Randy15]

not unless you buy the "live sand"

[fpv930]

Be careful of the grain size of the sand. If you have gobies, blennies, clowns and Tangs they tend to stir up the sugar fine sand. The fallout covers the LR and coral.

[JRF.]

Great thanks. I want to add blennies and tangs plus I am going to try to breed clowns. At least that is the plan. but time will tell.. I have a lot of things to do first.

[chaynes]

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This is Black Diamond 20-40 grit sand from Tractor Supply for $8 a 50 lb bag. I rinse it alot then as you can see the gobies love it, all my gobies have sifted it and dug tunnels pretty neat and a little different than the white sand.

[JRF.]

WOW that is amazing. So it didn't even start its life as "live sand". I didn't even know you could do that.
If I go that route will I have to recycle my tank? I am really new at this and this is my first tank and already made some mistakes now I am just way more careful.

[chaynes]

What I would do is rinse it, then put it in a plastic rubbermaid bin "tub" from walmart or similar for about $10. Then put in some fully cured rubble rock and use a fishless cycle method and cycle the sand outside the tank then add it to the tank once it has fully cycled.

[James77]

WOW that is amazing. So it didn't even start its life as "live sand". I didn't even know you could do that.
If I go that route will I have to recycle my tank? I am really new at this and this is my first tank and already made some mistakes now I am just way more careful.

IMO lives sand is a complete waste of money. Ther is very little life in it, and bacteria will populate regular old dry sand in no time at all.

You can add dry sand to your tank anytime and in any amount, it will not cause another cycle. Just rinse it real well, and expect some clouduness for a couple days. I would be cautious if you wer adding live sand, as therre would be some die off of varying amounts depending on conditions.

[JRF.]

Chaynes do you have any full pics of your tank? Ha I'm very excited this could be the coolest and least expensive thing i know have to do.

[sps_reefer]

i remember that my friend once had black sand and it was magnetic - attracted to the magnet in the glass scraper

[chaynes]

This sand is not magnetic as I have two magnet cleaners and it has never attached to them. I am not good at taking pictures but here are a couple full tank shots of tanks with this type of sand in it.

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[Flaring Afro]

Live sand (with the exception of sand bought from tanks in lfs) only helps start a tank by adding dead stuff to it that new bacteria will grow off of. It's out of water for a very long time - months by the time it gets to a store, is actually bought, and put in a tank. You can do this with fish food or dinner shrimp.

If you decide to go white, there's also "medium" sand at lowe's. That's somewhere around $4 per 50 pound bag and works well too.

[JRF.]

very nice thanks for the info. This will actually help a lot with the over hall.

[JRF.]

with the fishless cycle does it need light or just close it up and let is sit for a month?

[chaynes]

A little ambient light won't really hurt it but I wouldn't put a light over it.

[JRF.]

Nice going sand shopping on Monday.

[JRF.]

Are these sands basically just silicone sands? the one at our lowe's is.

[chaynes]

Yes they are basically Silica sands, I have tried them but they are very hard to get clean even after lots of washing they leave a film on the tank, better off using sand from reefrocks for $15 shipped for a aragonite based sand. If you must get it local consider a pool filter sand it is usually cleaner and takes less cleaning to use it in the tank. Another advantage of the aragonite sand is it's buffering capacity, and being calcium based it will add some calcium to the tank.

[Flaring Afro]

hmm I've never noticed this and have been using play sand for years and have had the medium grade sand for a month but researched it first and people on forums have used it without reporting this.

[chaynes]

Years ago I never noticed it either which makes me think that the quality has gone down, at least in my area. I tried several vendors and brands all with the same results. Now 5 years ago I never had a problem. Maybe it's just a problem in my area, I dunno.

[BigCountry74]

Home Depot sold agranoite based sand years ago, now they do not. Their sand is silica based.

Do not buy and use the Home Depot play sand for salt. You can use it for fresh. But salt you will have major red slime (high nitrate/phos) issues. It's a mess.

Just make sure your sand is agranoite based and your good to go.