Caribsea Tahitian black moon sand

bigcapct · Sep 3, 2013

I'm about to purchase caribsea black Tahitian moon sand for my new 120g reef. Anyone else use this in their reefs? Any pics would be great. I hear this PH thing but since here is live rock does it REALY matter ? Thanks in advance

pam0630 · Sep 3, 2013

I bet that's going to be beautiful

bigcapct · Sep 3, 2013

Hope so. It says neutral ph so won't affect it. But my live rock should take care of that and a nice sand sifter cleanup crew ! Can't wait. Comes in Tuesday

Wankell · Sep 3, 2013

Nice! Cant wait to see pictures of it, I was debating going black for my new 90 but I ended up with Fiji Pink.

Eienna · Sep 3, 2013

It should be fine. It will not, however, buffer your alk/pH at all. Just be aware of that.

It may rise in little bubbles of black sand for a while, but keep circulating things and it'll settle on its own.

jayhawk · Sep 3, 2013

I was contemplating black sand after seeing it at the LFS. It looked great. I returned to the LFS and the sand was replaced with neutral. I asked why the change. They said that the sand showed too much debris from fish waste and the slighted algae. The LFS is impeccable so it wasn't something I felt was lack of tank maintenance. I decided to mixed neutral and black. I had the mixed sand in a 28 nano for 2 years and used it for my recent 66 gallon rimless.

SeahorseKeeper · Sep 4, 2013

I'm interested in hearing how you like it. I tried it but decided the look wasn't for me.

DSP · Sep 4, 2013

Sand only buffers ph if your ph drops real low which it should never do in a saltwater tank.thats why you see so many successful bare bottoms.The sand your asking about will look awesome in your tank,I love black sand iv used it on 3 tanks so far and have black sand in my cube right now and just put some in my wife's 75 fowlr she's setting up.If you have good flow your sand will stay clean

bigcapct · Sep 4, 2013

I bought 6-7 20 pound bags ! Fingers crossed. It's gonna look great I hope !

bigcapct · Dec 2, 2013

Just gotta say that I made a great choice going with this sand. Looks amazing !!!

Palting · Dec 3, 2013

Your tank is looking great at 3 months out. Congrats!!

I have the Tahitian black in my FOWLR tank, and the Hawaiian black in my reef tank, both by CaribSea. The Tahitian black is more dark gray in color, much finer grain, is not aragonite based, and has a significant tendency to get blown about. It works in my FOWLR tank though. The Hawaiian black is medium grain, coal black in color, is aragonite based, and stays put despite a 50X flow I have going in the reef tank, so it works better in my SPS dominated reef.

bigcapct · Dec 3, 2013

Thank you!!! I'm glad I didn't do the usual sand. I think any other tank I do will have this moon sand from now on lol

boehm742 · Dec 3, 2013

I used a bag of it in my biocube and i love it! Nice and Black! Looks great in the tank posted above! good work!

NanaReefer · Dec 3, 2013

Personally I don't like it. Makes the tank look to dark :(

teddy13 · Dec 3, 2013

all but one of mine are black sand and i love it..

Fishtankery · Dec 3, 2013

I've been using black sand for a little over 3 years now. Used to own a 14 gal bio cube in the office, and currently have a 120 gal set up at home. The black sand adds a great contrast to the corals. Due to the deep sandbed in my 120, and the fact that the stuff is so rare and expensive. I had to take what was around. I found that a mix of Tahitian and Hawaiian added a good balance.

Here are a few observations:

>Any new sand that's dry, should be cleaned in a bucket prior to putting in the tank. Not worth filling up your skimmer or filter sock on a new setup when you can easily soak/wash the sediment out in a bucket outside.
>Some elements within the sand are magnetic. Enough that you'll want to use a long scraper wand for the area's 1" off the sand bed.
>Little bits of rock, shells, or other materials will be more noticeable due to the white on black contrast. Plucking these little pieces of debris out once a year isn't too bad.
>Any pebbles or sand that are not being turned over by inverts or flow will grow coralline algae. The purple coloring adds an interesting look.
>It's worth noting that cleaning/flushing the sand is very easy in that the stones will not break down (unlike Aragonite puka shells)

bigcapct · Dec 3, 2013

Good points ! It's def a cool look. Like graffiti on a black wall ! First thing people say Is Wow the black sand looks amazing. ! My Scoly looks crazy on the sand too.