beginner questions, again. live sand or arag.

[rodman844]

Please help. I posted some days ago and was told to remove my crushed coral. Ok. But, do I put in live flordia sand, live fiji sand,Carib-sea arag-alive fiji pink. or natures ocean bio-activ live arag? Sorry about all the chooses, went wild searching the net. I understand the difference from arag and sand, I think. Which one of these will give me the live creatures, not just bacteria? Also just went to harbour aquatics last thursday, bought 30lbs more live rock, Bought 40 lbs from my lfs week before. Harbour aquatic live rock awesome compared to my lfs, but, one problem, loaded with triffid. How do I remove them? Do I need to remove them? Will they become a problem later?

Specs

55g
cpr skimmer
70 lb live rock
live sand or arag, not yet
emperour 280, removed bio wheel just using for chemical, carbon

 

[Len]

The best sand to use is live sand, either from Fiji if you're planning on a predominately Pacific system (most systems are) or Florida if you're planning on a Caribbean system. I'd go with Fiji most of the time. You don't have to go 100% live sand. You can go with 80% "dead" aragonite sand (Caribbsea mixture of Special Grade and Oolitic sands) with 20% live sand, which will seed the rest of the substrate. Live sand will give you a good variety of organisms. The prepackaged "live" sands (e.g. arag-alive and bio-activ) won't.

FYI: Aragonite is just a type of calcium crystal structure that a lot of coral reef organisms produce (corals, in particular). Sand is a term for any fine particulate matter used for substrates and can be made of many things such as silica or aragonite.

Are triffids = Aiptasia anemones? If so, there's a lot of possible remedies, but I'll be honest: they are a royal pain

 

[rodman844]

Thanks for the info.

Can I put the sand on top of my crushed coral. I only have about one inch in the tank right know?

 

[Anonymous]

Yes, if you don't mind about the mixture (I don't, FWIW), you can put the fine sand over the crushed coral.