Live sand from LFS

[Richard Schmidt]

Just finished a fresh water test run of my 93 cube.
Appears plumbing is good to go.
Going to be draining tank and filling with RO/DI.
Anyone have any experience with buying live sand that comes in bags verses dry sand?
Cost is not that much different (about $7.00) per bag (tank needs 3 bags), just wondered if anyone has experience with it and if it helped cycle time.

Thanks

 

[brandon429]

http://reef2reef.com/threads/the-of...ead-aka-one-against-many.230281/#post-2681445

theres an in depth thread about the differences in my opinion. the bacteria they bring are incidental, there or not doesnt matter. even to an aged system...the bacteria in the sandbed aren't the breakpoint of being able to filter or not, there's plenty above the sand to handle duties.



we are either cycling dry rocks using the correct nutrient measures + time or we are using live rock and not cycling via ammonia boosts

those with full blown sandbed reef tanks often switch to bare bottom quite easily, highlighting the possibility of having no bacteria from a sandbed present.

the sand and its bacteria are changeable, not a big impact overall on ability to process raw ammonia which is the basic need of any cycled tank. yes they do seed the tank and make the cycle go faster. in fact a wet sandbed can confound a cycling test, processing some ammonia to zero while all along the intended surfaces up top aren't ready/aren't contributing to that measure.

 

[redfishbluefish]

I've always questioned how "alive" that live sand is that has been on the shelf for a year and a half. I see no problem with dry sand as long as it's calcium based (aragonite). You don't want to put a silica based sand in your tank. Since it's dry, I'd first give it a good rinse to get the "fines" out of it.