substrate question

[drunktank]

sitting here doin some work and started to think about what i'm going to use

i wanted to use black moon sand, but its expensive to fill a 150g....

i know the cheapest thing is playsand from HD or Lowes... anyone here use the playsand, how do u like it?

 

[inkblue]

...reguLar play sand is brown, i'Ve seen it, sucKy :sleepy: :tired:

 

[herman]

southdown is not too bad. Also available at HD

 

[joe]

how bout fiji pink sand.
a guy has it in all of his tanks on NR.com

its kinda cool, not to pink so dont worry

joe

 

[drunktank]

i was just wondering if this Southdown agragate sand from HD was good in a tank, lots of ppl say they use it. how much different is it to wut i sell at my LFS?

 

[Tonyscoots84]

its impossible to find southdown in this area. i have checked all over. i did in my 75 gallon 1 40 lb of tropical sand from lowes. its white really white. and just do like 2 bags of live sand on top of the tropical sand. def. worth it. the only problem with the tropical sand if you have a goby or fish that play in the sand ur tank will be snowing every day. lolz (sandstorms) bad ones.

 

[Blue02celi]

I love bumping old threads back up title fits so here goes... as said above, half live sand and half regular work out good? like using dead LR under LR to save on cash? also, I've looked around but havent seen much variety of sand, not sure if there is, but the fiji pink is mentioned here, also black moon... is there any other color besides white?

 

[NYreefNoob]

sand

i have white playground sand under my live sand and havent had a problem yet, tank only 3 months old now thoughi mixed it up when i first put it in but most of white is still on bottom

 

[House of Laughter]

I scaped a friends tank (110g) with 6 bags of sand - 4 of fiji pink and 2 Durascape which is a southdown and silicate blend. We put the sane hign in the back and low, almost non-existant in the front and put the pink on top, high in the front and covering in the back. Worked out well and tank is healthy.

I use the Durscape exclusively in the fish system and it has served me fine.

HTH

House

 

[Blue02celi]

im assuming the 2 durascape you added was also pink? my fiance asked when we were talkin about the tank if they had pink, and I had never seen it so I said no, now she knows pinks available so guess whats most likely going into my tank :lol: how much sand would I need for a 72g bowfront? for a regular sandbed, basically not a DSB, like 1.5-2 inch Im guessing right? figure if I give her as much input as I can, the less i have to worry about her not being onboard with it. she gets to pick some fish/substrate/coral etc... and I get to have a tank

 

[KathyC]

http://www.reefcentral.com/calc/SandBed.php

 

[Awibrandy]

I used the HD southdown sand in my tanks, never had a problem. Been atleast 4 - 5 years now.

 

[Blue02celi]

http://www.reefcentral.com/calc/SandBed.php

thanks for the link kathy... thats alot of sand lol, for about 2" SB, and for width for the BF I put 16 (goes from 13 at ends to 18 in center I believe) ... 80lbs

 

[loismustdie]

Blue, I used 400 lbs of southdown and about 10 pounds of live sand when I did my DSB. It's 3 years old. If you look at my full tank shot in my gallery, 75% of the rock you see in my tank wasn't live rock when I got it. When you go with stuff that's not live, you get reduced costs, reduced odds of adding a hitchhiker you probably don't want, but you also reduce the odds of adding a beneficial hitchhiker. I'm sure there are more pros and cons, this is just what made me decide.
When I move, if I decide to set up a bigger tank in my new home, I've got a garbage can full of dead rock I'll be doing my aquascaping with.:biggrin:

 

[drunktank]

wow talk about 1 year ago - thanx for bumping my old thread, brings back memories.

just for clarification, i eventually went with 120lbs of black sand (very fine grain) and it turned out great. No algae on the sand ever. however, it does tend to move easily in the current. I have about 2 inches in the tank right now. ANd once i get around to cleaning out my sump , i'll had a DSB in it.