Substrate

yank30265 · 05-04-2008, 09:19 AM

A guy in my LFS told me yesterday to lose my crushed coral(if it was returnable)What harm can 40 lbs of crushed coral do in a 125 gal with 90lbs of live sand? He started talking ditrious, ammonia, nitrates. i used to own a store.(part owner) I realize things have changed since then by reading this forum which has been extremly helpful. But 40 lbs dosent even cover the bottom of my tank. How hurtful could it be. I figure it takes up space; helps keep ph up and saves me money by not having to buy another 40lbs of argonite. Any thoughts on this. The store just opened and im still feeling him out to see if he knows what hes talking about because we've butted heads on simple stuff already and i only like to do business w/ people who know the business(like Rycheck)oh yea then he told me the bags of live sand w/ water in them arent really live because after bouncing around the back of a delivery truck underneath all kinds of other stuff what could really still be alive in it. I have no idea but i hope hes wrong otherwise I could have saved money by buying argonite dry. Any thoughts out there. I wanted to start doing set ups for him but if hes BS then i dont want to be associated with him

Rychek · 05-04-2008, 11:37 AM

I don't have any technical details/sources to back this up, but, IMHO, as long as the crushed coral is part of the bottom layer of the substrate, it shouldn't be a problem. Detritus doesn't accumulate on the bottom of the substrate, so it won't produce nitrates, etc. I would use it if you can't return it and/or it costs more to buy something else.

I used a funky mix of play sand, aragonite and sugar sand in my 55 gal tank. When I moved to my 90, I added another 50 lbs of live sugar sand to the top of the the mix. Unless someone has sources that say otherwise, I would use it (but that's just me).

chadf · 05-04-2008, 12:51 PM

I agree, it isn't going to hurt anything underneath the sand. If it's on top of the sand I would just do a good vac and then stir it up so it's mixed more under the sand.

CBRrider · 05-18-2008, 09:09 PM

After a while it will all become live sand.. The bacteria will spread. Even "live sand" in the ocean was once crushed coral.. --->CBR