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Thank you. I am happy as can be for your tank turn around. And appreciative beyond words for a community like this that we can all benefit from and learn from. Thanks guys for your contributions!
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Always heard that the "Tahitian Moon" has magnetic properties and have stayed away from that sand.
We also put a sample of the Hawaiian black sand in the SEM. They couldn't look more different. This sand was much more chemically uniform and had few inclusions of any type. It was also distractingly beautiful.
Yeah I'm not keeping any wrasses in this tank either. I'm still undecided if the substrate is too coarse for gobies and pistol shrimp.
Mine has been diving in it for a good year and a half. No issues yet. It is a salt & pepper aragonite.I have a new tank on the way... a bigger tank . This was a compromise with my ex. She doesn't have a say anymore. I'll be using an aragonite sand for a few sand sleeping wrasse. This Hawaiian looks nice, but I'm afraid they might injure themselves diving in.
Mine has been diving in it for a good year and a half. No issues yet. It is a salt & pepper aragonite.
I picked it up at Petsmart.Do you know the brand/type? Looking for something like that that’s safe...
I picked it up at Petsmart.
You can always find the safest brand and granular size you want of a black bag and a white bag of equal pounds of weight. Then just mix it and keep turning it over till it is evenly distributed. Then dump it in the tank. Or even if you want a little more white to help with reflection off the sand bed. Say if you have a 40g. Buy 30lbs of white and 10-15lbs of black aragonite.
That’s Sahara Sand! I like how it looks. I started a thread asking if it was reef safe last night. I can’t find any info on what it’s made out of anywhere.
Definitely not reef safeThat’s Sahara Sand! I like how it looks. I started a thread asking if it was reef safe last night. I can’t find any info on what it’s made out of anywhere.
Definitely not reef safe
I am not a fan of sticks. I run a lower flow. More bounce for frogspawn, candy cane, AUS gold torch and indo gold torch. I did just pick up a bubblegum digitata this past weekend at a frag show for $20. It hasn't opened up yet, but I am battling cyanobacteria pretty bad and finding the right spot for it. It is up top in the middle of the picture.No issues with sps where you’ve tried it? Tanks beautiful.
@rkpetersenFascinating thread. As it happens, I am currently using black sand (Carib-Sea IP) in a new tank build. I've sent off one Triton sample and did also see elevated nickel of 15 ppb, which may well be coming from the sand, as I can't see another source. Interestingly, vanadium was also elevated, but only slightly at 3 ppb.
Because I had heard some things about black sand, I decided to rinse it well first before adding it to the DT (removing the 'live' component) and also run some strong magnets through it to make sure there were no pieces of metal lurking. I was astonished by two things. First, the amount of dark organic and mineral crud that came out of that sand. Yikes. Second, the black sand particles themselves adhere strongly to strong magnets. (Yes, other brands of black sand share this trait, apparently.) If these grains are ferromagnetic they must contain significant amounts of iron, nickel, and/or other less common elements (some of which are not tested for with ICP testing.)
There are other good reasons for not using black sand. As Randy alludes, not chemically optimal. Also, the individual particles are harder and sharper-edged than typical aragonite sand. This, combined with their magnetic properties, is a set up for scratched glass. Have to be very careful with this stuff.
So far, fish, lps, sps, nems in this new tank are happy. I sent the Triton sample not to address any issues, but as a baseline. However I am concerned that nickel could be an issue and that it may continue to leach from the substrate. But for how long? And to what level will it rise if I don't address it specifically? Should I run something like polyfilter on a regular basis? Or just remove the sand and replace it with boring white?
How do you know the black Sahara Sand particles are aragonite?
So should I be pulling my sand? Trust me right now I would not be upset to start the sand bed over with. I do believe there is a 20lbs bag of black Hawaiian in my sand bed as wellNo black grains are aragonite.