Sand or Crushed Coral

[jhendu]

Currently have sand but thought of going to Crushed Coral. Hd the coral in the past and liked it. Torn on what to do. Give me some pros and cons to each to help me decide. TIA

 

[Bifferwine]

I would go aragonite sand over crushed coral anyways. I've found that detritus gets more easily trapped in crushed coral so it can lead to nitrate problems down the road. Plus, the sand-sifting animals don't like crushed coral...

 

[BonesCJ]

Agreed

 

[jhendu]

How does the aragonite compare to actual live sand. The sand I have I got off of ebay about 2 yrs ago. If the look is going to be the same then probably wouldn't change for that. I guess that I may be looking for aesthetics as much as function. I've also heard of people mixing crushed into their sand.

 

[Kentanner11]

mixing crushed into sand will only separate later, with all the CC on the top and sand on the bottom.

 

[Bifferwine]

Live sand can by any type of sand, aragonite or other. Live just means that it's been "seeded" with bacteria. You can pay twice as much for the live sand in a bag, or you can just buy plain old aragonite, seed it with a couple cups of sand from an established tank, and save your money. And Kentanner is right about mixing the crushed coral and sand, it will eventually separate into layers.

 

[jhendu]

Settled. I'm going to keep the sand that I have. Doesn't seem wort it to change. I may just thin it out a bit, not sure I like the look of 4 inch deep sand bed in the main tank. We'll see what happens. I can be so in decisive.

 

[BonesCJ]

Mine is aragonite and have a bed of 2 to 2 1/2 inches and really like the look of it, not too deep but room for my critters to play.