Seagrass Sand

[seacowboy]

I am setting up a 29 vascular plants/seahorse system. The two species of seagrass I hope to include in the system are: shoal grass(Halodule wrightii) and star grass(Halophila engelmannii) The sand bed will slope from a deeper side of the tank 5 inches deep to a shallower side of the tank 2.5 inches deep.


I know this is probably a trivial question, but I'm going to ask it anyway. For seagrasses like shoal and star what would be the best grain size of sand? .5-1.2mm? .2-1.2mm? .8-2.0mm?

Yes, I know I sound crazy worring over a few millimeters.

I am trying to choose which sand on the following page would be best http://www.marinedepot.com/aquarium_substrates_calcium_reactor_media_caribsea.asp?CartId=


does anyone with seagrass experience have an opninion?

 

[graveyardworm]

2.0 is on the large side, I would stick with the .2 - 1.2.

You also might want to consider mixing in one of the mineral/miricle mud type products. Kents makes one I'm dying to try so far I havent found anyone using it, its white so it'll match the sand. You'd be the ginea pig if you used it though.

 

[seacowboy]

I dont know how I would like being the guinnea pig; I think i'll use mineral mud, ive heard its like miracle mud but a whole lot cheaper

 

[graveyardworm]

Oh well some day Ill set up another seagrass tank and then I'll get my chance. Your version of guinnea looks alot better than mine.

Click on my red house to see my seagrass tank system build.

 

[seacowboy]

Anyone else have any other opinions or advice?

It looks like I'll go with the carbisea aragmax sugar-sized sand http://www.marinedepot.com/md_viewItem.asp?idproduct=CS0930

or maybe the caribsea aragmax oolitic select sand http://www.marinedepot.com/md_viewItem.asp?idproduct=CS0932
I dont really know what oolitic is?

 

[graveyardworm]

oolitic is another term for small grained IMU.

 

[seacowboy]

Samala, what do you keep in your tanks(substrate wise)?

 

[Samala]

Caribsea's aragonite Flamingo Pink (or something like that) worked beautifully in my tanks. Right now I'm using a silica based sand from Lowes, simply because I wanted to see if I could try it. No diatom blooms yet (well.. unless I OD the iron dosing).

The 0.5 - 1.2 range would probably work nicely. I have not seen seagrass get caught up too much in substrate sizes yet, but large grains mean larger pores and potentially easier root penetration. I dont have any hard data on that unfortunately.

In the wild we can find seagrass over thick mud (which would be very fine), oyster shell hash (quite larger pieces) and typical aragonite / silica sand sizes. If they have a distinct preference it isnt a very obvious one.

>Sarah

 

[piercho]

Oolitic means composed of or containing oolite. The definition of an oolite is a small, round, calcerous grain. In reef keeping, the word oolitic is usually applied to fine, soft, aragonite sand. Aragonite is the orthorhombic mineral form of crystalline calcium carbonate, dimorphic with calcite.

Caribbean specie of seagrass grows just dandy in very fine silica sand found in bays along the West coast, IME. Not as pretty as the whiter Caribbean aragonites, though.