Types of sand

[paultaylor]

Hi everybody,

I am putting together my first aquarium and I have a question on the type of sand to use.

There are many different types available at the LFSs BUT I thought it might be nice to get some 'real' stuff. So this weekend I was at the beach 8) and stuffed a load of bags full of, what looks to me like, very good sand. It was in an area totaly clean and swept by the wind. It is a VERY fine sand, you know, the realy nice stuff to walk on.

Now my question is simply, "is course (crushed coral..) or fine sand better for a starter reef aquarium ?" I don't want my fish choking on 'sand dust'

Many thanks in advance for your time in responding.

Paul

 

[ChrisRD]

There are different schools of thought on this...

Some people favor finer, oolitic sands in the hopes of cultivating a bed that has lots of worms and critters in it. The theory is that these critters will eat detritus and help keep the sandbed stirred and healthy by moving around in it. How deep this type of sandbed should be is a topic of much debate lately. Personally, I've not found any advantage to anything deeper than an inch or two (I've tried up to about 5" deep), but opinions vary...

Some still prefer to use a fairly thin layer of crushed coral so they can have super high flow rates without having fine sand blowing around the tank. Generally with this setup any detritus build-up is syphoned out of the substrate weekly, biweekly or monthly while performing a water change.

Some people even prefer a bare bottom (no substrate at all) - prefering to keep detritus suspended with high flow rates so it can be removed by filtration (skimmer, filter sock, etc.).

IMO some of this choice will have to do with what you're going to be keeping in the tank (ie, are you trying to create a high flow or low flow environment, are you going to be keeping fish that burrow in the sand, are you going to be keeping clams or anemones that prefer to be sitting in the sand, etc.).

All of these methods have been proven to work, so there's really no easy answer...

HTH