crushed coral vs sand

[Wiggie]

In your opinion what's the best substrate to use and why?

 

[kingfisher62]

Sand is your best choice .
Crushed coral will eventually become a nitrate factory. It is to coarse and allows food and sediment to fall into it and rot, while sand is so small and tightly packed the foood and stuff stays on the surface and is more likely to stay in the water column to be eaten or filtered out.

 

[Faye]

kingfisher is right but i think crushed coral looks nicer.

 

[sporto0]

HAHA I absolutely abhor the term Nitrate Factory, but in this case, kingfisher is absolutely 100% correct, please avoid crushed coral, I used it for 5 years, the last year was an Algae nightmare, I've since swithced to sand & have been algae free for 3 months now.

 

[pmrossetti1]

I vote for a coarser grain sand. 1-3mm 1-2" sandbed. To be regularly vacuumed with water changes.

 

[doctorgori]

I've used (and am currently using )a thin coating of VERY coarse rubble; not many use this method because it's sorta a tricky thing to pull off w/o the right flow and the right CUC, but believe it or not done right doesn't collect much gunk and beats the look of a BB tank (although sometimes I do wish I had done a DSB just for even better aestetics tho)

 

[Ron Reefman]

I vote for a coarser grain sand. 1-3mm 1-2" sandbed. To be regularly vacuumed with water changes.

You really vacuum your sand? I thought most people with saltwater tanks quit doing that after they quit 'under gravel filters'. I never vacuum my sand, but then I have quite a few animals that live in and stir it up, including a good size Coris Wrasse.

 

[elegance coral]

I vote for a coarser grain sand. 1-3mm 1-2" sandbed. To be regularly vacuumed with water changes.

You really vacuum your sand? I thought most people with saltwater tanks quit doing that after they quit 'under gravel filters'. I never vacuum my sand, but then I have quite a few animals that live in and stir it up, including a good size Coris Wrasse.

I vacuum mine as well, and have been doing it for about 25 years. IMHO, there's no better way to remove nitrate and phosphate, unless you want to go BB with lots of flow.

 

[reefmanmatt]

i have a 2:1 mix of sand / crushed coral. i really like a little variance in color and size personally

 

[Genin]

I have very very fine sand in my tank (I think they call it sugar sand because its so fine). I love the looks of fine white sand. The only annoyance is it can be blown around very easily. I use nasarius snails to keep it stirred.

 

[pmrossetti1]

You really vacuum your sand? I thought most people with saltwater tanks quit doing that after they quit 'under gravel filters'. I never vacuum my sand, but then I have quite a few animals that live in and stir it up, including a good size Coris Wrasse.

Always have, always will vacuum my sand. A lot of gunk in there friends.

 

[GoIllini]

Go with sand, stay away from crushed coral

 

[Wiggie]

I've used (and am currently using )a thin coating of VERY coarse rubble; not many use this method because it's sorta a tricky thing to pull off w/o the right flow and the right CUC, but believe it or not done right doesn't collect much gunk and beats the look of a BB tank (although sometimes I do wish I had done a DSB just for even better aestetics tho)

Do you have a pic of tyour tank?

 

[89Foxbody]

I don't get how people vaccuum their sand..I have decently but not overly fine sand and any time I siphon anywhere near it I suck the sand right out. What am I missing lol?

 

[sporto0]

I don't get how people vaccuum their sand..I have decently but not overly fine sand and any time I siphon anywhere near it I suck the sand right out. What am I missing lol?

It's not really worth the hassle, sand sifting creatures do a better job, if your tank is like mine, trying to vaccum around corals is a pain, but the trick to vacuuming sand is to tilt the tube to about a 45degree angle & the sand will gently roll back int the tank, still kind of a pain though.

 

[elegance coral]

I don't get how people vaccuum their sand..I have decently but not overly fine sand and any time I siphon anywhere near it I suck the sand right out. What am I missing lol?

It is hard to syphon detritus out of fine grain sand. The detritus is often as heavy, or heavier, than the sand, so the sand gets sucked out with the detritus. If the sand is slightly heavier than the detritus, it's easy to suck out the detritus, with a gravel vac, while leaving the sand behind.

 

[James77]

There is also Seafloor special grade. It is not as fine as sand so it does not blow around, and it is smaller than cruched coral so it is not as prone to trap crap. I just blow it around with a powerhead or fan some water at it to free up any trapped detritus.

 

[Hendogg0]

I would just use sand the crushed coral is a nitrate nightmare and second if you have to siphon out your sand then maybe you don't have enogh current or you have too many dead stops I dont siphon my sand I let my nassarius snails do that.

 

[hirez]

So Argonite from Korallen zucht is a nitrate factory after a while?..
hmm, with all the zeoheads out there, i would think its a very good thing..

 

[d0ughb0y]

Sand is your best choice .
Crushed coral will eventually become a nitrate factory. It is to coarse and allows food and sediment to fall into it and rot, while sand is so small and tightly packed the foood and stuff stays on the surface and is more likely to stay in the water column to be eaten or filtered out.

I alway read about crush coral being a nitrate factory.
if that is the case, wouldn't using the coarser grained reefflakes have the same problem? is the grain size of reefflake the same as crushed corals?