Sand beds vs. Crushed coral

[gun_winter]

Okay so I was wondering is there a difference betwen sandbeds and crushed coarl for the bottom of a tank i want to start with a couple of clown fish and in 2 years add an anemone. If i go with sand does it matter what kind and etc do i gravel vac it if not how do i clean the tank?

 

[Andrew]

CC is pretty much asking to raise your nitrates. I would go with sand. If you can find it, southdown sand works good as well as Quick Quete sand. If you have a clean up crew and sand shifting stars and fighting Conches then they will keep your sandbed clean and you won't have to worry about cleaning it.

 

[bertoni]

I agree that crushed carbon gets messy. I would vote against the sandsifting stars, since they tend to starve to death after about a year in most tanks. Fighting conchs are good if the tank has 8 sq ft of open sand or so.

 

[gochinj]

Jon,

You meant crushed coral right?

 

[Dubbin1]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=6487904#post6487904 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by gochinj
Jon,

You meant crushed coral right?

I'm sure he did

 

[Blown 346]

I also vote for sand, conches get big and they can knock over and collapse rockwork since they are clumsy. I would hghly reccomend Nassarius, cerith snails to help keep the sandbed clean, as well as matbe a gobie.

 

[gun_winter]

Wow thanks for the info but what do you mean by the sand ****fing star (where would I find one how much etc.) and if they die after a year it seems like a waste is this like anemones the tank is running for 8-12 months before i can put one in? where would you find the sand?

 

[Blown 346]

Sand sifting starfish eat the worms, pods, living organisms in the sand for food. That is all they do all day long, is search for food.

I agree with and without the assumption not to own one.
Thus being I have had one for over 2 years in a sand bed of 3 inches deep and it has more than doubled in size, and I stil have plenty of life to go around in the sand.
But you have to have a stabile and mature tank since they are very sensitive to water quality etc. Plus the tank they would be going in has to have plenty of liverock.
The sand will become live with all the worms etc after a couple of months since the liverock will seed it and help it gather the critters.
Buying sand with the critters in it wont happen unless you buy sand form another reefer or your LFS that has had the sand already established in their tank for sometime.
The Live sand that you can purchase only contains bacteria and is a waste of money, you wil get the same affect from the live sand for sale, as you would with liverock in the tank after a few months with base or dead sand. The liverock is what actually holds all the bacteria, and from that you will start to aquire the living organisms in the sand.
I would wait atleast 6 months before adding a starfish or anemone. Thats is of course if the lighting you have is strong enough to keep the Anemone alive.

 

[bertoni]

Well, yes, but I bet crushed carbon would get messy, too.

 

[gochinj]

Jon,

lol... I was thinking the same thing

 

[bertoni]

Most sand-sifting stars seem to starve to death, from what I can tell. What species yours is and why it's survived is hard to say, but I still think they're a bad bet.

 

[gun_winter]

Okay so could I just use regular aquarium rock in my tank I mean whats the difference between sand and regular rock if no what if you put sand over large base rocks and larger gravel

 

[Dubbin1]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=6493964#post6493964 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by gun_winter
Okay so could I just use regular aquarium rock in my tank I mean whats the difference between sand and regular rock if no what if you put sand over large base rocks and larger gravel

I'm not really following you there gun_winter. Can you try to be a little more clear on what you are asking?

 

[gun_winter]

Okay so they sell large rock for bases of aquariums and I was wondering if I could just cover that in sand? and if not then could I just use regular rock for a aquarium?

 

[bertoni]

Only porous "rock", like the base rock and live rock that's sold, will help with filtration. They're mostly not really rock, but the skeletons of various coral reef organisms. You should be able to use a product like that. I don't know what you mean by covering them in sand, though.

Any rock that's stable and doesn't release toxic compounds in saltwater would be okay to use as decoration. Pure quartz would be fine, for example. Volcanic rock might be iffy.

What did you have in mind?

 

[gun_winter]

Well this is just like aquarium gravel exept it's refered to in the gardening industry as river rock and it is that size and its flat you use it as a base to add volume to your gravel

 

[bertoni]

I'd worry about some part of it being soluble in seawater, but I might be way off base. Is the composition shown anywhere?

It might be safe as decoration, but I wouldn't expect that it's going to do any filtering.

 

[Blown 346]

Plus if you use tht type of porus rock for a substrate it would be like using crused coral. In time it will cause a nitrate problem. If you puty sand on top of it, the sand will work its way to the bottom and would be pointless to have,