Live Sand

[Tategrant]

How many pounds of live sand should I get for my 90 gallon tank?

 

[Cjsanders757]

How many pounds of live sand should I get for my 90 gallon tank?

Depends on how deep you wan the sand bed to be

 

[bill302]

Tell us what you are doing.....Are you buying live rock and how much? In my opinion if you use cured live rock you don't need to waste money on live sand. I used cured live rock and enough dead sand for a 2-3 inch sand bed live rock will seed the sand bed....

 

[Tategrant]

1 inch sand bed.

 

[Tategrant]

Depends on how deep you wan the sand bed to be

What do you recommend? I was thinking 1 inch to 1 1/2 inch.

 

[baron1282]

I have a 3 to 4in sand bed. It also depends on what you want to put into your tank, some animals need a deep sand bed, while some don't need a sand bed.

My sleeper goby loves his sand bed, as it's deep and has life all throughout it. I see little bug like creatures come out at night and scurry around my tank. I don't know what they are, but I assume they are helpful. Most things that come with your live rock or sand is helpful.

I bought live sand and live rock. To me spending around $37 dollars each for 3 bags of 20 pound CaribSea Fiji pink live sand was worth it, but that is when I set up my 29 gallon tank. When I switched over, I bought 30 more pounds of Topfin normal sand.

If I where you, I would go ahead and buy the majority of your sand normal. I would only buy maybe 2 bags of live and throw that on top of your other sand. This is cheaper and will help get the other sand live faster than just the live rock alone.

As for the how deep your sand bed is, I was told that a nice deep sand bed helps a lot. From my experience it has not disappointing me to have a 3 to 4in sand bed. I just don't know if that would be considered deep.

 

[Tategrant]

A 2 inch sand bed would be good? How many pounds of sand for a 90 gallon tank?

 

[baron1282]

I had a 29 gallon tank when I first started, I bought double the amount of sand. Gave me a good deep sand bed. This is the result.

This is the same amount of sand plus 30 in my 55.

 

[Tategrant]

How long is your 55 tank?

 

[baron1282]

standard 4 foot, but only 12in wide. It's the same length of a 90 I believe, not not as wide or tall.

 

[Tategrant]

How many pounds did you have?

 

[baron1282]

90 all together.

 

[Tategrant]

Just for the 55?

 

[Tkey3425]

How many pounds did you have?

If you want a 2inch sand bed go for 100 lbs. go one eBay and order the 40lb bag of ocean direct from petsolutions for $35 free shipping. I'd get three bags and just throw the 120 lbs in there. I put 240 lbs in my 180 gallon 6ft tank and it have me right at 2 inches. It's finer sand so you have to work with your flow directions to keep it from blowing around but I have a 1200 gph return pump, 2 mp10es, and two more 1200gph circulating pumps and mine stays down. Plus it settles really fast and doesn't need to be rinsed. I didn't rinse mine and its been running for a couple years with no issues.
http://bit.ly/15pMl8s

 

[Tkey3425]

You need roughly 120 lbs.

Buy this its really good priced
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Ocean-Direc...101?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item48549d28fd

 

[baron1282]

60 pounds of live sand, plus 30 pounds of normal not live sand. 90 pounds just for the 55.

I suggest around 120 or 160 pounds of sand for your tank. Do the majority of your sand regular sand not live. I would at least buy 40 pounds of live sand (2 bags) and put that spread evenly on the top of the regular sand.

I got my normal sand at pet smart (TopFin) for cheap, normal sand will not break the bank.

 

[Tategrant]

Why not all live sand?

 

[Tategrant]

I'm thinking 40 regular sand 80 live

 

[Tkey3425]

I'm thinking 40 regular sand 80 live

IMO do 100% live sand and 100% base/dry rock. Wait the month or so for the cycle to complete. Saves you from any hitch hiker animals or disease. Plus dry rock is way cheaper. Again go to petsolutions.com for rock and sand. I started with dry rock on all my tanks and within a few months it will look the same as the $10 a pound rock sold in the LFS.
Buy your sand here it's super cheap compared to anywhere else and it's the same people from petsolutions.com they sell 50lbs of good base rock for $70 and you could get your rock and sand shipped for free.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Ocean-Direc...101?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item48549d28fd

 

[obscurereef]

To get a 2" sandbed in a standard 90 gallon aquarium, you'd need 70 lbs of sand. If you wanted 3" it's 105.

Sand Bed Calculator