Coral gravel or live sand bed?

[pomme]

Coral gravel or live sand bed?

I was told today my a lfs that i should get rid of my coral gravel and replace it with some sand, as it wouldnt accumulate the detrious as much and lead to better water quality. Do you think this is true?

The gravel i have is TMC gravel of various sizes: fine, medium and coarse.

If i was to replace it i was thinking of getting some live sand from STM:

but i wasnt sure between the STM aquacultured live sand or the ultra fine marine white?
http://www.stm-shop.co.uk/acatalog/Sands_for_Marine.html

If you were to change over and put new sand in,how would you put it in so that it didnt cloud the water column too much?

Andrew

 

[steve-s]

Coral gravel or live sand bed?

I was told today my a lfs that i should get rid of my coral gravel and replace it with some sand, as it wouldnt accumulate the detrious as much and lead to better water quality. Do you think this is true?

Yes. The sand will have much more benefit to the sytem as apposed to CC. Not only will the sand trap much less detritus and other water quality degading items, it also has much more surface area for needed bacteria.

The gravel i have is TMC gravel of various sizes: fine, medium and coarse.
If i was to replace it i was thinking of getting some live sand from STM:
but i wasnt sure between the STM aquacultured live sand or the ultra fine marine white?
http://www.stm-shop.co.uk/acatalog/Sands_for_Marine.html

I would actually suggest you purchase the Sugarfine Aragonite and possibley a small amount of the live sand as a thin top layer. The only benefit there will be the claim of "calcious sediment from our rock bins" which should benefit the growth of coralline algae. Since you have LR, that in itself will seed the sand making the need for LS redundant and an unneccessary cost.

If you were to change over and put new sand in,how would you put it in so that it didnt cloud the water column too much?

Just so happens we have such an article here >> How to change out your substrate
I've done this myself with 2 different tanks and it should be a snap. Preparation being key

Cheers
Steve

 

[pomme]

cool thanx for that, ill get 20kg of the stuff soon, as i only want it in fron of the rocks and not under the rockwork. howdeep do you think i should have the sand bed a light scattering od a dsb (what depth)?

 

[steve-s]

If you want a DSB the depth should be 4-6". Personally I do not use them. With enough LR and proper oolitic sand, only about 1½" of sand is needed.

Cheers
Steve

 

[pomme]

yeah i dont really want onejust a layer of sand to keep the detrious out and to cover the glass and also something i dont need to do anything to

 

[Electrobes]

I couldn't agree with steve more. Not only what he is telling you is on the ball, but you'll save a lot more money as well suing the seeding method. Out of curiosity, what set up do you have pomme?

 

[pomme]

ihave a 100 gal tank with 80kg of live rock, there are 2 overfloes to my sump where i have a caulerpa bed (although small) a deltec skimmer apf 600,a deltec fluidized bed for rowa phos (phosphate removal) and a return pump delivering 2000 l and hour, then in the tank there is sps coals and 2 common clowns, 3 green chromis, and for lighting the is a 250 watt metalhalide. and the substrate i have got at the moment is some varying size of marine gravel which goes around the rock work and not under it.

would that be okay to change.

 

[pomme]

do you think this could be a good substitute to the stm aragonite


the red sea stuff:

http://www.redseafish.com/Product.asp?dir=y&CatId=-1&SubID=36&proID=188

andrew

 

[steve-s]

Actually I think it is a hype product. All you really need is an oolitic aragonite sand that is free of impurities. If you do not have a cheap playsand alternative in England, I would go with a product like Caribsea Argamax Select.

Cheers
Steve

 

[pomme]

cool thanxsteve,yeah i did find aragonite sand, and put itin yeasturday and all looked good, but then i noticedthat this morning some of the sand had been blown around so you could see patches of the glass,is there anything i can do about this or just keep moving itback once in a while,or putin a deeper bed?

 

[steve-s]

is there anything i can do about this or just keep moving itback once in a while,or putin a deeper bed?

Might need to slightly adjust the direction of the water flow. Sounds like a PH might need raising up a tad to keep it from digging up the sand and creating the bare spot. In time the bacteria and detritus will weight the sand down some but only to a certain degree. It won't be enough to counter the force of a strong PH. A deeper bed would just make a deeper hole.

Cheers
Steve

 

[pomme]

yeah my ph are the tunze streams so very powerful, so i wight try and change the angle of them a bit as they are alreagy as high as they can go?

 

[steve-s]

Might try angling them so the flow is a bit more lengthwise in the tank rather than front to back. That way you will not have to sacrifice the amount of flow.

Cheers
Steve