New tank set up: Hawaiian black sand and lights for 15 gallon

[fearlessjim]

I am getting back into the hobby after a long break, and I'm currently in the planning stages. I've been searching these forums and still have a couple of questions

I really like how the hawiian black sand looks. Has anyone had long term success with it? I know that some people don't like how I it looks, but I do. Are there any other negative issues with using it?


Also: for a while now, I had my sights on the IM 10 gallon tank, and I had the lighting set for that. But I really like how the waterbox tanks look, and I think I'm going with the waterbox 15 gallon. It seems like this will require an upgrade over the lights I was planning on. Any recommendations?

Cheers
Jim

 

[Uncle99]

Just that small water is much less forgiving than larger water.
You can't put much in a 10 or 15 gallon
Well, actually, you can, but might not be the best idea....

Long time ago used black substrate. Made the tank look dark and hard to "read" the sand condition.

White substrate seem to provide more reflective properties and personally, this look better to me.

But the look is your choice.

 

[tjm9331]

I've never used black sand before but one thing that I do hear/read about it that continuously comes up is that it has some magnetic properties to it.

So if you're using a magnetic scraper for the glass, I have heard that some of the sand will stick to the magnet and eventually scratch the glass.

We'll need a little more info on the light in order to give you an idea on whether or not you should think about upgrading.

 

[jlmawp]

I've never used black sand before but one thing that I do hear/read about it that continuously comes up is that it has some magnetic properties to it.

So if you're using a magnetic scraper for the glass, I have heard that some of the sand will stick to the magnet and eventually scratch the glass.

We'll need a little more info on the light in order to give you an idea on whether or not you should think about upgrading.

Doing a black/white mix of sand is a regret of mine, if not just for this reason.

 

[fearlessjim]

I've heard about the magnetic issues. Trying to decide how much I want to care about that. I was planning on a magnetic scraper, too. So I guess one of those is out

 

[aznflyfisherman]

Be careful with cleaning with magnet scrapper or anything with magnets, the black sand particle will be picked up with magnets and scratch the whole tank up without you realizing it.