New tank: pool filter sand + live sand?

[dsmalls]

I'm coming from the freshwater arena and used pool filter sand in the past with excellent results. It's awesome stuff! I'm looking to get a SW setup going and am in the information gathering phase now, heck I haven't even bought the tank yet, so please bear with me.

In the LFS I see these packages of live sand and was wondering if I could mix that with pool filter sand (the same stuff I used with my freshwater tank)?

Could I do a 50/50 split of live sand/pool filter sand? I'm not sure how folks handle the live sand. Are there living "creatures" already in the sand? If so, do they get sucked up when you vacuum?

I love the hobby and want to get back into it the right way. Many thanks.

 

[Ziggy953]

Go with all dry sand. Forget the live sand. Too expensive for a bag full of wet sand with a lot of dead stuff in it. Ask you LFS for a cup of sand or get it from another hobbist to seed your tank.

I don't know about using the pool filter sand in a marine tank, I would check to see how much silicate it has in it before committing.

 

[roka64]

I agree, pool sand is not used by a whole lot of folks in the SW side (at least not that I have seen). It does seem to be more silicate based, which can cause diatom blooms, due to the high content and high lighting used in SW applications. With that being said, you might be able to get away with some pool sand mixed with dry aragonite sand. One more thing, the pool sand, being more silicate based is sharper than the other sand and could (but probably won't) damage/hurt any sand sifters in the tank.