TommysGirl

I'm sorry to be confusing. Ok, I have been ordering most of my stuff through Foster and Smith. If you go into their liveaquaria site they have live sand listed. If you look under marine substrates, they have aragamax sand and it says that it is also live (some of the descriptions say that it has a bio-film and others just say it has live beneficial bacteria to shorten the time it takes to cycle). The only other difference that I can see is the size of the grains of sand. The aragamax appears to be larger grains of sand. I'm nervous about adding either one, but for the specimans that I hope to keep in the future, I believe it will be necessary (mandarins/blennies). I understand that some live sand comes with little critters in it-are those little critters going to throw my tank all off or hurt anything that I already have? Would it be terrible if I removed some of the existing CC substrate so that it doesn't get all mixed later on? I have read up on this some, but I see so many differing pieces of advice! I'm sorry to be so confusing, and I REALLY REALLY thank you for all your expertise!!

__________________
30 gallon saltwater
45lbs live rock
45lbs live sand
1 Maroon clownfish, 2 Damsels, several varieties of mushrooms and polyps, and one Frogspawn...

ahill3780

I can understand your concerns here.

Live sand is live sand, grain size aside one is as good as the other. There are no horrible consequences to mixing any type of sand (or CC) and it is actually recommended that you try to mix several types of sand to add biodiversity to the organisms that will seed the tank. Some sands are heavier in 'pods (copepods, amphipods, etc.) while others have more various types of microsnails and worms, while still others include microstars and other micro organisms.

There is no real procedure when adding sand to the tank, but if you are adding new sand to a long-established sandbed you might not want to cover the existing sand with the new sand but rather clump it in sections and then poke it down in areas into the existing bed.

The only time you would need to cure live sand is if it was collected from a beach or some other marine environment. The reason you would cure it then it to remove harmful pathogens and diseases, as well as pests that may be in it.

Any time you add sand to a filled tank you are going to get a sandstorm and your tank will be cloudy for a few days afterwards. Just keep the filtration equipment turned off during this time so that you don't clog up the media. Although if you don't mind replacing the clogged media then it is a good idea to keep them running to help clear the tank faster. I prefer to just keep everything off and let the sand settle, its up to you though. You do not need to remove the fish during this time. Sandstorms occur naturally in the wild and it will not harm the fish or stress them too much, they have learned to deal with it.

HTH,
Aaron

__________________
"The only thing that happens fast in saltwater tanks is failure."

[url=http://www.fishtankforums.com]
[img]http://www.fishtankforums.com/sigpics/91_fishtankforums.png[/img]
[/url]

Heymybigfish

mixing is ok...there is no advantage to it...

__________________
55 gallon reef tank

jkilmer83

When I first started my tank I went the cheaper route I used some cc (15lbs) only one bag of LS and the rest plain sand. I mixed it lightly to mix LS with other sand I have experienced no problems.

On a side note there is a small thing I have noticed is that you can get algae growth in the sand bed (more so than gravel).

__________________
Setting up 200 gal reef
taking down 65 gal Reef

Tommy Gun

Sheesh, look at all the cheeseheads replying to this thread!

I have to say that I disagree with you on this one heymybigfish. Since both types of substrates have respective pros and cons, it might be beneficial to mix them to benefit from the pros of each. For example, I did the same thing as jkilmer as far as mixing live sand with 'normal' sand when I upgraded my saltwater tank and then added about 20 pounds of crushed coral (CC) so that I can have the benefit of the steady pH we need.

Also, the benefits of live sand is that it offers a much higher amount of surface area for good bacteria to grow upon as well as not allowing room for detritus to 'get lost' within and/or accumulate between vacuuming, just to name a few, where as crushed coral or any larger grained substrate would lack in both of those areas. So...if one of us learned about this but already had crushed coral in his or her tank, they could benefit from simply adding sand and mixing the two together versus performing the tedious and disruptive task of removing the CC.

To be really blunt, I have never really heard/read about this advantage of a gravel substrate, and really, I feel it would be more logical to say that algae growth is only less visible when using CC versus sand, which again, will not afford the algae room to grow in areas hidden from view. Sort of an 'out of sight, out of mind' type situation.

-------------------------
As a quick side note though, I just wanted to point out that 'dredging up' old post like this one (which is actually approaching a year old already...and I can remember when this discussion was started, believe it or not) is often the pet-peeve of other members because there is a very high probability that they questions or comments are no longer a concern, and so they really only serve to 'bury' the more recent posts with queries on issues that are occurring today. Make sense? All in all, this is something which falls under the 'forum etiquette' or 'unwritten rule' sort of thing, however, I am certainly not trying to 'scold' anyone, and in fact, I appreciate your taking the time to offer info and ideas as much as you can, but I thought I would bring it up before someone else does.

Tbx

Why you could just go to petsco that is the only live sand they will sell you here but on the other hand for god sakes who wants something saltwater related from petsco.

__________________

Tommy Gun

True, true...and I have found a lot of places which sell live sand like I mentioned. I wrote that reply a long long time ago, when my first saltwater tank was less than two month old, and so I wasn't as aware of things like I am nowadays.

Tbx

Sorry just making sure you are not wasting effort on something that is easily obtained.Sorry i did not read the side not till after that post so how did this come up on new posts any ways?

__________________