rusty reefer Posted January 31, 2008 Share Posted January 31, 2008 hi am setting up a tank (28g). i was wondering if it is worth buying the live sand? or is it abit of a rip off????. can anyone tell me the benifits of using live sand over normall "dead" sand. thanks. Link to comment
JustReef Posted January 31, 2008 Share Posted January 31, 2008 Not worth it. All sand will become live eventually and it won't make much of a difference in your tank as long as you have an adequate amount of live rock. Link to comment
jamesnmandy Posted January 31, 2008 Share Posted January 31, 2008 if you want to save cost i think a good approach would be to get a small bag of live sand and the rest can be dead sand, the live sand will seed the dead sand, i would not go with completely dead sand Link to comment
FyrFighter2004 Posted January 31, 2008 Share Posted January 31, 2008 live sand works to shorten cycle time. IME i used fully cured LR and a bag of LS and I never saw any trace of ammonia or nitrite, hell i have yet to see nitrate above 5-10. Its been going a month and my picasso clowns are loving life! Link to comment
bamackc Posted January 31, 2008 Share Posted January 31, 2008 to trying to jack your tread what about the stuff at petco in a bag thats says live sand? is it really live sand??? Link to comment
Militant Jurist Posted January 31, 2008 Share Posted January 31, 2008 Basically, the rule is that if it's wet, it could be alive. If it's not wet, probably not alive. The LS that I've bought, if you look at it close for a minute, you'll see something move around on it. Link to comment
Pseudocheilinus hexataenia Posted January 31, 2008 Share Posted January 31, 2008 live sand works to shorten cycle time. IME i used fully cured LR and a bag of LS and I never saw any trace of ammonia or nitrite, hell i have yet to see nitrate above 5-10. Its been going a month and my picasso clowns are loving life! I envy you for having Picasso clownfish. Back to the topic, I've used all live sand and all dead sand (except for a few scoops of live sand from a pre-existing tank). The only difference I've seen is that it takes longer to cycle a dead sand tank and I waited about a month for the few scoops of live sand to turn the dead sand into live sand. Also, don't buy crushed coral. (Just makin' sure you don't make my mistake.) Link to comment
TJ_Burton Posted January 31, 2008 Share Posted January 31, 2008 I envy you for having Picasso clownfish. Back to the topic, I've used all live sand and all dead sand (except for a few scoops of live sand from a pre-existing tank). The only difference I've seen is that it takes longer to cycle a dead sand tank and I waited about a month for the few scoops of live sand to turn the dead sand into live sand. Also, don't buy crushed coral. (Just makin' sure you don't make my mistake.) I have used dry sand on all of my setups except one. I did a 50/50 mix of live/dry sand on the 20g in my sig. It also had all cured LR, and was started with 50% water from a previous display. There was no cycle. The 40 I am setting up will be done 50/50 as well. Link to comment
Recommended Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.