Substrate Question

[allyjoe]

I am in the process of setting up a 120 gallon tank. For filtration, I have a very good Remora protein skimmer and two canisters rated well over 120 gallons (of course the live rock will contribute here as well). For the substrate, I am leaning against live sand in lieu of regular dry sand (want to save the money for the live rock). I figure the dry sand will be wet and live soon enough. I've been planning to use a basic Caribsea aragonite; however, I recently have been looking at a very fine white sand. It is Nature's Ocean Marine White Sand Premium Marine Substrate (0.1 to 0.5 mm). Does anyone have experience with this type of fine white sand? I am interested in the looks of this substrate, but I do not want to do anything that will have a negative impact on pH, nitrates, or anything else for that matter. Thanks in advance for the help.

 

[Thumper]

I think it will be fine, it's small enough in size to do the job and shouldnt hold no3 in. I would go for it. I wish I would have done something similiar myself instaed of spending lots of money on ls.

 

[mjvincent]

sounds good

 

[allyjoe]

Thumper/mjcvincent, Appreciate you both replying. Still have not seen any information that would indicate a sand this fine is a bad choice, so I'll probably go ahead with this unless someone weighs in with a bad experience.

 

[liquidreamer]

I have a question on this as well.... I used the 40lbs? bag of aragonite dry by caribsea from the lfs... I also got a 25lbs bag of aragalive. I found that the aragonite dry is kind of large grained in comparison to the same company's live sand which is more pink instead of brown and has smaller grains. Then, I purchased a live detrivore kit from Bob in Philadelphia off of Ebay which included 1lb of "live sand" as well. This sand that he sent was AWESOME! it seemed almost sugar fine and really really white. I wish I would have known they made this stuff from the beginning... because I would have went with that! Can anyone tell me the name of this stuff or where I can get detailed info on sand color/size? I sure think this stuff would have been a little more cleaner than what I have - junk gets all over the big grains that's in my tank

 

[allyjoe]

Liquidreamer, Have not bought my substrate yet, but I noticed the same thing as you when I went to check things out at the LFS. The Caribsea live sand was a bit smaller than the Caribsea dry sand. The stuff I eventually found and asked about last night sounds like what you are now interested in. I also think it has a very good look. It is made by Nature's Ocean. Try the following link:
http://www.naturesocean.com/gravels4.htm
Petco actually sells it at a pretty good price. The color is white and as I indicted above, very fine (.1 to .5 mm). Never used anything that fine before, which is why I thought I would ask the experts here!

 

[havefun]

I went against the grain (pun intended) and used toys r us white playsand (silica). This sand is very very fine - grain size is about that of sugar. With my powerheads pointed up to the surface the sand still blows up onto my base rock about 8 inches or so from the sand bed. I'm going to be getting some lr in a week or two and I hope that wont cause problems.

 

[liquidreamer]

Actually - it should settle once the LR is in there - the bacteria makes like glue on the upper layer or sand and keeps it in place unless a very strong direct current hits it. I had the same problem with my sand at first as well. Only problem is, my grains are rather large (although not quite as large as crushed coral) and it attacts a ton of gook.