4/8/04 - Substrates

[Orange Crush]

We come here to a topic that I admittedly know little about, so I'll leave it up to someone else to get us started.

 

What kind of substrate do you use in your tank? If you could start over again, would you use the same type/amount?

 

What about deep sand beds? Are they a waste of space in a nano?

 

How about the newer colored substrates? Who uses them, and do you like them?

 

Grain size? Crushed coral or oolitic or something in between?

[PyRoZ]

substrates.. mmm

 

in the main tank.. 20g cubish shaped.. I use a fine aragonite sand..

 

in the sump.. 15g High tank.. 3" of crushed coral of various sizes.. and will be adding a lil more.. will be for a pistol/goby combo..

 

I find the colored substrates look rather tacky.. though ive seen black gravel used.. looked not too bad..

[Acoustic]

1) I use black calcite sand.

2) Yes this is the sand I will use in any reef-tank I have for life.

3) Deep sand beds are extremely important to support micro life and the overall health of corals and in no way should be thought of as filtration. It should be maintenanced as regualry as water quality.

4) I like only like dark black. I don't know of too many other reefs on forums that use it.

5) I have always felt that grain size should be less than 3mm.

[birdman204]

I run a mix of finer aragonite sand, and CC... Depends on what type of inhabs you wanna keep as well....

[Chamkeeper]

Southdown or southdown....

 

Deeeeppppp in the fuge ~5-6", about 1" in the main.

[movingshadow]

I've been thinkin' about doing either of the following just to see how it'd look...

 

"green sand beach" (yes there is an actual green sand beach on the island of Hawaii, it's a gemstone (olivine I think) mixed with regular sand which makes the beach green... got some of the sand here, would look pretty nuts on a reef tank...

 

or "black sand beach" (yep, black sand beach on the island of Hawaii) though I'd also go with calcite instead of lava sand, as lava may have metals or other impurities which could wipe out a small reef pretty quick...

[djconn]

Love the avatar movingshadow

 

I use very fine pure aragonite sand. I personally feel that the finer the sand = more surface area for buffing.

 

And if I had to do it all over again - I would add at least another 1" to my original amount I put in the 20 gallon last year. Just my 2 cents.

[Aiptasia]

I use caribsea seafloor special grade in a DSB/Plenum in both of my 20g. tanks. I love the look of the black calcite sand and I've heard nothing but good things about southdown sand. A pet shop in Charleston highly recommends southdown.

[PLasmah]

I use crushed florida coral. I like the way it looks and all those lil shells. I allready heard people here say that its not good as a substrate but I think its fine.