Trying to get a good sand bed without selling my tank to afford it.

[DCJ]

Hallo forum!

This hobby has gotten expensive.

I wanted to sandbed all four of the tanks I'm going to be setting up - I used a sand calculator and it told me that I'll need roughly 175lbs of sand to give me a 2.5" sandbed on all four (give or take)

I was going to use Caribsea Aragonite Special Grade, which I used before, but it'll cost me just under £200.

Ouch.

I wondered if anyone had experience with/opinions on laying a bed of Aquanatural Oolitic Aragonite and capping it with the Caribsea.

A lot of reviews and discussion have people mention that it's really cloudy even after rinsing and that it never really settles/always clouds up when something's moved. A couple of people have said it's more silt than sand because the grains are so fine.

It's cheaper than the Caribsea though, and I thought it could help me reduce the cost a little and reduce the cloudiness issue. I'm just not sure about what will happen when the coarser sand lays on the finer sand, if that's a recipe for disaster or something that might work

I'd love to hear your opinions and experiences!

Thank you!

 

[therootcause]

Two bags of live sand split between all four tanks to seed bacteria, the rest can be dry sand. The oolite may be a very fine grain that you grow to hate as your wavemakers will push it all over the place. 2.5" sandbed....too deep. Cut that number in half and cut your costs in half.

 

[brandon429]

It's not cloudy after rinsing


You'd tap water rinse it until its ready

If it can't be rinsed free don't use it, that initial rinse reveals it's details

 

[DCJ]

@therootcause

hallo again my friend! I realise I left some pertinent information out - I need a deeper sandbed in the RSR350 because I'm planning on having a halichoeres wrasse, but I can cut back on the other tanks.

I don't really like the live sand thing, so I'd be using the inert stuff, which is a little cheaper too

Yeah, I'm really worried about the oolite and the wavemakers, which is why I wanted to weigh it down on top with the Caribsea - someone went a little more indepth in a review and said it gets weighted in the end anyway, but they're the only person I've seen who said that.

I'd expect a little cloud when the wrasse buries himself, but constant swishing by the wavemaker will just make me wish I'd used a different sand, you know?


@brandon429 I think the cloudiness after rinsing is more the grains being so fine that they stay in suspension and make it cloudy? I'm sorry, I wasn't clear.

The person who complained about the sand being basically silt said that they washed half of it away during their rinse, which is another thing I'm worried about.

What do you mean by 'reveals it's details', that's a fascinating turn of phrase.

 

[brandon429]

Meaning if the grains are so small it can't be rinsed clear don't use

 

[DCJ]

Meaning if the grains are so small it can't be rinsed clear don't use

Ohh, thank you for clarifying.

Have you used that sand before? Or similar, I can't find the grain size anywhere, but one reviewer said it was under .05mm