Hello everyone

[gullmo]

Hi, I am new to the website here but was impressed by the advice that was available. And all of the member tanks looked awesome. I am planning on starting a 20 gallon mini reef in the near future. So I will be here often bugging you all with my questions. First, I have some aragonite (SP?) that I had in a tank raising african cichlids fry. Could I still use it if I obviously cleaned it thouroughly and added a little bit of live sand to it?

[gullmo]

I know that question sounded retarted, what I really wanted to know is if the substrate will still buffer my water as effectively if it has been used for a while and then rinsed and reused?

[tinyreef]

the aragonite is still usable. the particles/grains will continue to dissolve little by little. you may want to use smaller grains for better denitrative properties. although the larger grains tend to allow larger (individual size) pod populations but you suffer in lower overall worm populations. give and take.

 

rinse and soak the aragonite in saltwater first before using to remove any possible chemicals (copper) that ever came into contact with it.

[gullmo]

Thanks for the reply. I plan on mixing about 50% aragonite with 50% new live sand for around 3"- 4" deep substrate. And should I use a high sg saltwater to clean the substrate (1.030) and any cured live rock I start with? Thanks again!

[gobies]

That depends on where you get the cured rock from. If you get it locally and the trip home is short, or if you bring it home submerged, you shouldn't need to go with a hypersalinity bath. If you get it shipped to you, pull off all the obviously dead stuff first. A hypersalinity bath might chase out any mantis shrimp that stowed away in your rock, but it might kill other, desirable life, too.

 

Other than that, I dunno....