Live sand

[BoZachary2012]

I recently got a Biocube as a present and I was wanting to know about live sand. Is there a good brand out there? New to the hobby and I was gonna use it with live rock. And how much should use? I'd like to have a deeper bottom

[msderganc]

CaribSea is a pretty common and well regarded live sand. I'd recommend staying away from a deep sand bed (3+ inches) because you can get H2S buildup (and other bad things). Most sandbeds are between one and two inches.

There's a calculator on the start page of ReefCentral that will give you a good idea of how much sand you'll need for your tank.

[MHG]

do a little research and you will find a bunch of people who buy it and a bunch who don't.

Reasons why they don't... Some believe it is of absolutely no benefit. Anything of benefit has died in the bag sitting in the warehouse in dark boxes and airless bags months ago... If anything was alive it likely includes pests as well.

Dry sand is way cheaper...

[thegrun]

I would just go with dry sand rather than "live" sand, it is less expensive (you are not paying for water) and there are few if any advantages to "live" sand that often has more dead than live organics in it. To determine how much sand you need take the width and depth (front to back) dimensions of your tank, multiply those numbers together, multiply that number by the depth of sand you want and divide that result by 20 and you will get the pounds of sand you need: WxDxthickness of sand/20= pounds of sand.

[BoZachary2012]

Thanks guys. Good point about the dark boxes and airless bags.

[chrisfont23]

+1 to dry. No water weight and "live" in a month.