Questions about sand or substrate

[marcom1234]

ok im looking through the fosters and smith catalog and they have 5 different types of sand and some have a few different sizes.... how do i determine what kind of sand or substrate to choose?
there is Agra-Alive... in four different grades...... fiji pink sand...special grade sand....bermuda pink sand......indo-pacific black sand.

then there is aragamax sand.

and then seafloor spcial grade reef sand..

and then florida crushed coral...

then i also have tidal marine substrate..... in meridian oolitic aragonite ... or pearl beach aragonite....or silver shore.....golden shore....grey coast calcite... and kona coast aragonite....


im baffled in the amount of choices and don't know the benifits or the bad things about any of these.... can anyone help me choose a good one.... i would like to buy some sand and then get some live sand to add to it.....
i plan on having a 75 gal and hopefully a sump/refug with corals clams and lps and sps ... oh yeah some fish too... maybe an anennome or two.

any help would.... well... help :D
thanks in advance:)

[bertoni]

If you just want a thin layer of sand, an inch or so, for looks, then any of the relatively fine sands should be fine. I'd choose something that went down to at least 0.5mm in the size range. I think the finer sands make for easier maintenance because they collect less detritus.

If you combine a coarser substrate and live sand, eventually the coarser substrate will work its way to the top and kill the live sand.

Outside that issue, you can pick what you think looks nice.

[marcom1234]

i think i want a sand for filtration .. not undergravel filter but like a dsb.....

[marcom1234]

i just saw your thread on substrates but i would still like peoples opinions on this while i read that thread :)

[marcom1234]

no one else has any ideas?

[Desert Aquarium]

I would say personal preferance, once you've decided to go DSB, it's all about the look you want.

[xtrstangx]

I would use the special grade reef sand, if it was me. It is a bit of a courser grain, but it doesn't matter (Dr. Ron Shimek did a study on it). The larger grain prevents it from getting blown around too much, but still allows for anerobic areas to form and do its job in nitrification.

If I was going to have a SSB/DSB in my 120g, that is the sand I would use. I'm going BB though.

[bertoni]

When I took Dr Shimek's course on DSBs, one of the results was that even the finest grade of commercial sands available for aquariums were too coarse or marginal. When I set up a DSB again, I'm going to look into silica material such as sandblasting sand for that reason. The special grade should be fine for a SSB, though.