Here it goes!

[DeathWarp]

Well, I have a 65gal salt aquarium which has been up for a while now. The guy at the LFS had told me when setting up my tank that CC is your best and safest idea for substrate and that aragonite/sand was a bad idea blah blah blah. Well; after doing some searching on here because I for some reason decided to look it up; I see that the sand is a much safer bet. So after spending a crap load of money on that CC, i've decided im going to attempt a substrate change. Thankfully to those who has posted topics about how do to it; I began my trek tonight. I changed about 1/4 of it and kept a little space dividing the old from the new. By putting the sand in a bucket and running water into the bucket i've seemed to keep the coudiness to a minimum. Please keep me in your prayers; I'm truely hoping this comes out for the better.

(I truely love the look of the sand over the CC)

 

[Fluff]

Something else you could try is to use a piece of pvc pipe and pour the sand in through it. This gives you control of where the sand goes and will minimize your sandstorm/cloudiness. Good luck.

 

[DeathWarp]

Good Idea, I never through of that. I was using a sort of large cup with a lid on it to try and avoid the cloudiness but it didnt work 100%.

 

[cordodor]

Deathwarp, I'm in the same boat. What kind of sand did you use? Where did you get it?


For anyone else... My FOWLR tank has been up and running w/ a CC substrate for a year now... Will the introduction of a Live Sand/play sand mix benefit me at all or should I just go with Play sand and let the creatures just move in?

Also, what's the difference/benefit of aragonite vs. "normal" sand? TIA

 

[MarineFlake]

Not just any sand will do. If it contains silicates it can cause problems. There are others that can respond as to what and where. I personally just gave in and bought x number of bags from Petco of the ls they sell. Worked great on my 10g and 29g.

Peace.

 

[DeathWarp]

I using Aragonate acctually. Luckly my tank has only been running for a few months so the only real pain in the butt Im having is moving all the darn rocks around. I've heard ups and downs about Aragonite but i'll still saying its a safer bet than my CC anyways.

 

[Scottm]

Sand that has silicates in it just won't buffer. It won't cause any problems otherwise our glass on the walls of the tank would cause algae b/c all they are are silicates.

 

[demodiki]

I would bet (someone please correct) that your glass walls don't leak silicates into the water like a silicate-based sandbed would.