Sand or no sand

[pleuralplexus]

Im really disappointed in the black-on-black look of my 28g JBJ nano. I thought black AragAlive would look nice when I first set up the tank, but now I hate it because it's just too dark against the black rear divider. So I'm thinking of just scooping it all out. I thought of replacing it or mixing it with standard white aragonite but I don't want to screw something up and ruin the chemical homeostasis of the tank. Is sand really necessary? I have my doubts. And can you switch sand midstream in the life of a tank and not lose livestock?

 

[TundraGuy]

You can add live sand I have found that the shock is minimal. But this is also dependent on the bio-filtration of the tank being founded in live rock and the filtration. If you’re minimal on that then I’d go slow and suck out small portions of sand at a time. Then once the black is gone then start adding small quantities of sterile aragonite at a time. Maybe add enough to cover the bottom but give it no depth. Then test water a few days later and add more so on and so forth till the desired level is reached. One cool BB tank I saw the guy had painted the bottom of the tank with a chrome reflective paint, this as you can imagine bounced a lot of light back up lighting the under sides of the corals and fish making the tank appeared 2x brighter and still maintained the BB. Personal taste I like a white sand bottom with some nassarius snails running around at feeding time. But again that’s a personal taste. Hope this all helps

 

[pleuralplexus]

Thanks a ton. That's the way I'll do it then.