what sand for a reef system?

[Neptune 555]

I am upgrading my 75 gallon to a 180 gallon reef. I am keeping all livestock and live rock. I want to start with new sand. Recommendations for the best sand in a reef? Yes I will have gobies, sea serpent, snails, and bristle worms.

I need to add existing live stock to tank ASAP b/c otherwise they are in buckets waiting... How do I add new sand and have a tank ready for fish?

please share favorite posts on how to upgrade tanks.... The hardest part about this is that my new tank must replace the same spot where the existing tanks sit... or yes this would be much easier.

thanks
Neptune

 

[basement reefer]

Some of the larger grain caribsea. Although since the tank is big you might get away with finer sand if you keep the flow down. (Maybe Gobies like finer sand?)

Rinse it out really, really well ahead of time. This may wash away the "live" in the live sand, depends sometimes it comes separate in packets.

Basically since you have the same live rock and maybe a bit of your old water you should be OK. Your bio-load has not increased, though your bio-filter might experience a bit of a hickup because of the new clean equipment, just monitor ammonia for a little while and be prepared to water change if necessary. (I doubt you have the space, but if you did you could save the waterchange water with a bit of heat and circulation you could recycle it once any ammonia dropped.)

I have never noticed any ammonia this way but I am usually lightly stocked and a smaller scale. IMO you will be fine.

 

[Neptune 555]

I was thinking of using dry sand either way b/c the wet stuff will have bio load? So even with dry sand you must rinse? for 180 gallon tank rinsing the sand is gonna be painful.

neptune

 

[vetteguy53081]

Fine or other but not too coarse and best brand is carib sea. Most carib sea contains live cultures to aid with seeding and clarity

 

[SPR1968]

I think as already said, just keep away from the very fine sand as it easily gets blown around and also thrown around if you get some very active gobies, especially the sand sifting (sorry throwing all over the place! Lol) ones!

I know the Red Sea ‘live sand’ doesn’t need washing if that’s any help, I used the pink version (no it’s not pink before you ask it’s white) and the grains are a decent size as well

 

[PDR]

I really like the caribsea special grade sand and I have heard good things about tropic eden reef flakes.

 

[Crustaceon]

I ran bare bottom for a while, hated the look and eventually added fine sand with much less overall flow to compensate. I took it all out after 1 week because it was a nightmare. Even at 1/2” depth, I started getting anaerobic areas and hydrogen sulfide bubbles forming. This was with sand sifting stars, nassarius snails and enough flow to keep my acros nice and happy. Having sand constantly covering my montis was a factor too. So out came the turkey baster to knock out the detritus. Lo and behold, just like with courser sand, tons of detritus came out! This is pretty much the case with every type of sand i’ve ran. Either way you’re going to have to maintain the entire sand bed if it’s shallow, or just the thinest layers of a deep sand bed and hope it doesn’t disturb the nastiness beneath. This will make heads spin and generate “you can’t do thats!!”, but I run a mix of carib sea special grade and crushed coral aragonite (dun dun dunnnnnn). I was recently pushing 80x turnover through the tank and even the special grade was still blowing around after months of settling. I plan on upping the flow even more soon. My nitrates hold steady at 5ppm (right where I want it) just as they did with my fine sand or bare bottom and now with crushed coral because I still regularly mechanically remove detritus (bi-monthly for me). I just swish the crud into the water column where it gets sucked down the drain and into a filter sock. The sock gets replaced with a clean one every week anyways so no big deal. This takes around 5 minutes on a 100 gallon display. Maintenance is the key here and honestly one type of substrate doesn’t take any less maintenance than another in most cases. IME, I really don’t see one substrate or a lack of substrate being inherently “cleaner” than another. Which brings me to the “ah ha!” moment in this hobby when I used to have nitrate issues even though I did all of the “right things” like frequent water changes, less feeding, etc. I was siphoning my sandbed probably every other month and expecting my CC to do the rest. It wasn’t working and my nitrates had crept up to 30ppm with noticeable hair algae on the rockwork. I started my current turkey baster routine and now nitrates and nuisance algae really aren’t an issue for me anymore. As a matter of fact, I’m actually doing far less water changes in order to keep nitrates in the tank.

 

[MaiReef]

The larger grain the better. Either way keep it mixed. No more than one inch is easier to keep clean.

 

[lapin]

I was thinking of using dry sand either way b/c the wet stuff will have bio load? So even with dry sand you must rinse? for 180 gallon tank rinsing the sand is gonna be painful.

Rinse your sand. As much work as it is now, it is easier to get rid of the dust now rather than once its in the tank. I rinse both wet and dry stuff. No need to worry about rinsing the bacteria off. You could not get rid of it unless you chemically killed it.
I use a mix of Reef Flakes. I mixed all these sizes.
Miniflakes - 2.0mm
Mesoflakes - 2.7mm
Reefflakes - 3.0mm
Reefflakes Grand Select - 4.5mm
It is pretty clean sand and does not need too much rinsing.

 

[Vahanyos]

I highly recommend special grade sand. The chunkier ones than your typical sand. It looks like tiny Little Rock’s. Best sand I’ve used thus far. You can add it slowly to your tank after giving it a good mix. May get a diatom bloom a small one but nothing major. I would wait about a week or so in between if you really don’t want to cause any major disturbances