Sand Replacement Peninsula

[The Coug]

I’ve got a 200 gallon peninsula build I’m planning to transfer my existing Reefer 350 into. The BRS videos sold me on Caribsea Ocean Direct sand as I wasn’t a super fan of my current sand and I liked the idea of hopefully bringing in the bacteria from the direct ocean sand. Unfortunately, the sand is much finer than I expected. I really like how it looks but I am continuing to have blowing sand and bare spots.

I’m using 4 MP40s for flow and have tried gyre, reefcrest, and a few modes. I have also repositioned them, used antisync and decreased the flow.

When I add all my rocks from my existing reef, I expect it will change the flow and may help but I doubt that’ll be enough.

I’m coming to accept that I may need to change all the sand out. Any advice is greatly appreciated.

-Should I just bite the bullet and change sand before I add my existing rock?
-Any ideas on how I can make the Caribsea Ocean Direct sand work?
-Would it be feasible to take half out and mix with Caribsea special grade or should I just change everything?

 

[Ben Pedersen]

I’ve got a 200 gallon peninsula build I’m planning to transfer my existing Reefer 350 into. The BRS videos sold me on Caribsea Ocean Direct sand as I wasn’t a super fan of my current sand and I liked the idea of hopefully bringing in the bacteria from the direct ocean sand. Unfortunately, the sand is much finer than I expected. I really like how it looks but I am continuing to have blowing sand and bare spots.

I’m using 4 MP40s for flow and have tried gyre, reefcrest, and a few modes. I have also repositioned them, used antisync and decreased the flow.

When I add all my rocks from my existing reef, I expect it will change the flow and may help but I doubt that’ll be enough.

I’m coming to accept that I may need to change all the sand out. Any advice is greatly appreciated.

-Should I just bite the bullet and change sand before I add my existing rock?
-Any ideas on how I am make the Caribsea Ocean Direct sand work?
-Would it be feasible to take half out and mix with Caribsea special grade or should I just change everything?

I have always wanted to have waves in my sand!... The challenge is having the wave action fill the empty spots while making the sand waves... Wish I could make this work. No mor detris stuck in the sand.. The sand would always be white... just like the a real reef.

 

[The Coug]

Yes, I really like the waves and texturing of the sand so much! It’s so cool to see the contours.

 

[ihavecrabs]

I want to say I use special grade reef sand and I have pretty high flow with two gyres, two mp40s, and two pp8s all going between 70-100%.

My sand gets moved around a little on the middle front but doesnt cloud of blow around.

Might be worth checking it out.

 

[The Coug]

Has anyone successfully had the wavy rippled look of a fine gain sand last well in their tank?

 

[Dkmoo]

I'm going to be biased here but I added some coarse black Hawaiian sand, about 50 50, to help weigh it down and I really liked the cookies and cream look of the resulting sandbed. And since its not all white anymore, it doesn't look "as dirty " when I dont clean it, giving my sand CUC more time to clean it for me

Downside is that the big grain size will exclude certain types of critters like sea cucumbers bc they need fine grain

 

[The Coug]

That is an interesting look, definitely has a salt n pepper feel. Do the different grain sizes stay mixed for you or do they separate out?

 

[Dkmoo]

They stay mixed for me. If your flow is really that strong then maybe the spots closest to the powerheads will have more black. But I also stir the sand a bit with each cleaning.

 

[lubeck]

Did you end up changing out the sand.

 

[The Coug]

Did you end up changing out the sand.

No, I left alone. It did eventually mostly settle down and I still have a ~two bare patches on each side where the current must angle too far down. It does have some sections that have separated out the larger bits from the smaller ones.
Overall I am actually really happy with it though. I looks more natural to me that my tank with special grade that’s all uniform in size and lays relatively flat. It does blow around if I let things get stirred up and I have to clean off some corals on the sand bed. The white smaller grain hills and valleys in the tank look really good to me as well but I don’t have the true ripples in the sand anymore with all my rock in.