Sand vs egg crate

[titoav15]

I think I already know the answer to this question but maybe there is something that I overlooked. As the setup of my frag tank continues I am now looking at what to put and not to put in the frag tank. I used white egg crate before in my DT as a rack and like others folks experienced, it started to grow a little bit of algae.
I am thinking of going with black live sand for the frag tank but maybe if I was to buy black egg crate it would just as good? Any thoughts? Pros / Cons would be helpful

 

[block head]

black egg crate is pvc. it would be a better solution than white. sand will more than likely ,be more trouble than it's worth.

 

[titoav15]

sand will more than likely ,be more trouble than it's worth.

hmm... why do you say that? Whats the problem with sand?
Just to be clear and not that it might change the answer but I was planning on buying live sand.

 

[block head]

your tank is very shallow. with decent flow, it will turn into a snow globe.

 

[mr.maroonsalty]

Will it be 4+" deep? I wouldn't use a shallow sandbed unless an animal needed it, and an ssb was all I could do.. Why do you think the white eggcrate is the reason for algae growth??? I believe those you know over at the chem forum will tell you that a hard plastic can't release PO4. Egg crate is one of those things being used by countless people without trouble. Why not use a piece of acrylic drilled to receive round plugs, if you are looking for something different?

 

[titoav15]

The tank will be 8" deep (24w x 16w x 8d). The plan was to get some live sand that was little "chunky" not fine sand (20lbs to start with). The pump that will be running to the tank will be under 100 gph. Also I am not planning on putting any powerheads in there just yet. I want to see what kind of flow I get just from the return. All I will be growing in there are some lps, zoas and softies.
I guess I might have more research to do than I had anticipated lol

 

[mr.maroonsalty]

I don't think that will be enough flow.

 

[titoav15]

I don't think that will be enough flow.

Thats what I thought too, but after looking at the frag tank at ABC (they have almost the same one as me) The tank seems to have great flow all the way around. If I feel the need, I have a powerhead I can stick in there.

 

[Gravesj1s]

Its a fine plan to go with.

It comes down to preference more so than anything else. Detritus accumulates regardless if its in a ssb or not.If you gravel vac it theres no reason to think it will cause problems.It may blow initially but as it becomes coated with biofilms it will tend to stay settled.

 

[titoav15]

Thanks all the input guys!
I think it’s best to start with sand and see what happens, if for whatever reason it doesn’t work I can find plenty of uses for it
Will live sand mess around with my water parameters much, if at all? I never bought live sand before. My tank will be plumed into about 70 gal of water + 13g frag tank.

 

[mr.maroonsalty]

The thing about a bb is the detritus collects itself and can be easily syphoned out every week. Is your dt bb? if not get dry sand and seed it with a cup or so.

 

[titoav15]

pardon my lack of knowledge in abbreviations, but what is bb?

 

[tekim]

bb = bare bottom

 

[titoav15]

bb = bare bottom

thank you! I feel dumb now :hmm3:

 

[titoav15]

now that thats clear, yes my dt has sand. Will look for dry sand at ABC if they don't have it will that be a problem? I mean does live sand change much (if any) parameters of the water? If not, I don't have a problem getting live sand.

 

[IronMan72]

The benefits of using live sand are often debated and questionable at best. I'm not sure that anything is still alive in that hermetically sealed packaging that's been sitting on a shelf at the LFS for awhile. I'd do as mr.maroonsalty suggested and buy dry sand and seed it with sand from your dt if you must have sand. I personally don't think I'd use sand at all though.

 

[tmz]

I use a couple of inches sand in one of my 30gallon breeders and have the other bare bottom. Both work fine. i also use shallow fine grain sand in the sps dominant displays which have about 50x total flow.

Eggcrate, black or white grows algae even in low nutrient water and is a pain to clean,ime. I gave up on it in favor of some plexigalss( with lots of frag plug holes drilled in with a standard spade bit) with PVC legs. These racks stay much cleaner; coat up nicely with coraline ,and;are easy to brush or blow off when necessary which is not very often.

 

[pascal32]

+1 to tmz, my experience has been the same

I did have to add a small cleanup crew to my ssb frag tank

 

[titoav15]

cool thanks for the input guys! I will go to ABC today and see my options on sand.

 

[MD Ocean Girl]

The J Man and I have a ssb in our 20 gal long frag tank....hob filter, powerhead (not sure of the flow)....no problems with sand blowing around at all. All ABC had at the time was live sand, and it didn't do anything to the water chemistry in the tank, good or bad.

The frag rack in the tank is built out of PVC for the legs and eggcrate for the shelves. We've never had bad algae growth on any part of the stand. The PVC and eggcrate both have some nice coralline growing on it.

We have a small clean up crew in the tank too, partly because my two clowns are in there until we move and get them a bigger home. We've got softies, zoas, LPS and SPS in there and everything is growing nicely. Maybe we've just been lucky, but since day one when it was set up, we've never had any issues with water quality or bad algae growth, even when we weren't using rodi water. The only frags we've lost were a couple frags of zoas that didn't look great to begin with.

Personally, I like the look of a ssb....makes the tank look a bit less like a frag tank and instead looks a bit more polished.

The stand you've built looks great, btw. Loving the updates!