Substrate reccomendation?

[rig]

Hello,

 

I'm trying to decide on a substrate for my 7G nano im trying to decide between CaribSea Aragamax Suger-Sized Sand and CaribSea Aragamax Oolitic Select 30 lbs. The select is .5-1.02 mm, and the sugar sized is .2 - 1.2mm. I cant find any other differences. I want the whitest sand I can get for this tank, and dont mind spending a little extra money because I only need so little. Should I maybe go for figi live sand instead? I've had trouble finding a vendor that will sell me just 12lbs or so. I don't plan on keeping a deep sand bed either, just about 1.25-1.5". Thanks a lot for any reccomendations.

 

-Todd

[freakaccident]

Premium Aquatics will sell you 12lbs of Florida live sand. If you want the purty white sand then its not the sand to go with but it's cheap and has a lot of life in it. For the purty white stuff I would think the sugar sand stuff would be best. Seed it with a cup of good live stuff and it will grow.

[printerdown01]

I personally like mixing oolitic aragonite (the sand you have suggested) with another sand like a fine crushed coral. If you have to pick between the two I would say oolitic... just be patient and wait for it to sebtle when you start the tank... If you add a dry oolitic sand make sure you wash it over and over... MOST people skimp on washing oolitic sand (far more so than they do with regular sand) because it is harder to wash. The problem is that oolitic sand has more dust and fine particulates that you want to remove from the sand before dumping it in your tank... Although eventually a filter will help you out if you don't wash as well as you should.

[freakaccident]

Southdown is really white and fine. I don't think washing it is necessary if you put the sand in before water. I trickled the water in through an airline tubing (siphon) over a rock and had no problems. On another tank I put it in with water in the tank and it was a nightmare.

[edying]

Printerdown -

 

Most folks I know don't actually rinse the finer grained sands - oolitic, sugar size, southdown. They want the finer particulate size for their DSBs.

 

There are quite a few threads about rinsing Southdown, for example, over at RC.

 

-Ed

[lizbeth]

I must say that it depends on the bag of southdown you get. The first two bags I went through were VERY dirty. I can't imagine using them without washing the heck out of it. The water looked like chocolate milk.

 

I helped someone with their southdown last weekend and it wasn't dirty. I think that batch could have been put in without washing. But we did rinse it due to my experience with the first two bags I got.

[Bleeding Blue]

Why don't you want to keep a DSB? Possibly you should put a little more research in the benifit of a DSB. If you still don't want a DSB, then it will not matter what sand you use, because there will be no anaerobic area for the de-nitrafication, and thus no need for a large surface area for de-nitrafying bacteria. What sort of filtration will you be using?

 

Mike

[printerdown01]

edying,

There is no way that I could have put the oolitic I got in my tank w/o rinsing it. First I was adding it to an already established tank. Second, it had plant material in it (two tiny leaves), so i know it was "clean" lol.

[zizmans]

My LFS has tanks of LS in the back. Clean, lots of life. $1 per pound.

[freakaccident]

Sounds like a bargain! I can get Florida LS from Premium Aquatics here in town for $1.95 a pound or so. I might get a few pounds to help seed my new Southdown and some to re-seed my other tanks.