[boombadan]

Hi, I have a question about the live sand and dead sand combination i want to make. Ok, I really want white sand in my tank but im not sure if they sell live white sand at my lfs. I was wondering...I made a plenum system and have it in my tank. It says to put the system in the bottom of your tank with about 1 to 1.5 inch of sand over it. Then it says to put a screen over the sand and put another 2 inches of sand over that(the screens to keep animals from diging down to the plenum). Would i be able to buy live sand and put it on top of where the plenum is and then add the screen and on top of that put white playsand??? In many of the books iv read it says you can cure dead sand after a period of time haveing live sand with it... Would this work since im going to have a screen dividing the live and the dead sand. Thats where i don't know if it will work... Should i do this because i really want white sand or just stick with plain live sand???

Any suggestions??...

thankks,
Dan

[boombadan]

If i could get answers priddy fast that would really help because i think i am going to the fish store tomarrow afternoon.

thankks

[mtfabel]

Ive always heard that playsand was bad. But I know a guy that runs a reef store and he uses it so Im unsure. I know that didnt really help any.

[boombadan]

I think playsand would be fine though because they sturalize it and wash it so when kids play in it they wont get sick from it. I think it would be fine im not sure though....

[RyanG]

Use the vinegar test, add vinegar to the sand, if it doesn't fizz, it's silica sand. the fizzy is an indication of calcium carbonate i believe. no negative impacts, just a diatom trap, and ends up brown looking vs. white.

[boombadan]

Reefbuliders i will remember that but i went to the fish store today and got live sand from one of his tanks to put over the plenum. Then i added the screen and i put some type of bagged caribean sea sand that is black and white over that which is live sand too(threw bag away so don't know type). I bought 17 pounds of live rock too but it is still stirred up so i just put it in there. I will rearange the rocks tomarrow if it hopefully settles in a day.

[RyanG]

we want pictures!

[Jaguar23]

Just my 2 cents. When setting up my tank I used 150lbs of "Pavestone" pulverized limestone from Homedepot. Mixed with Turbostart 900. Instant live sand and looks good too for under $35.00.

[boombadan]

nice i probly would of went that way with it if i didnt purchase my sand already

[boombadan]

Heres a pic RyanG

[boombadan]

a lot of my white live sand got on top of my white and black caribean sea sand since i put everything in when the water was unsettled so it really doesn't bring out its real colors

[D_Bo]

Using turbostart really isn't gettting live sand.

livesand refers to sand with micro organisms in addition to the nitrifing bacteria.

[boombadan]

i know what live sand is and if u look under the baged product there is live sand that came straight from a tank.

[Jaguar23]

D-Bo, you need to go to carib-sea.com and look under "contact us". Contact them and tell them they are doing it wrong. You need to tell them they need your advice and to add micro-organisms to their agra-alive "live sand" that only contains bacteria.

[nickrp]

Hey man, I have a 29g tank that Im gonna turn into SW. What else would I need to buy if I bought an eclipse hood to go on top of it? Do I use the biowheel that comes in it? Is the lighting suffecient for anemones?

[boombadan]

no i dont use a bio wheel and no i dont use floresent lights. I use small chunks of live rock it the whole filter section and have a pad in there it creats a biological filtration system and it takes out the fine things floating in the water, i upgrated to a retrokit light for the hood. I also suggest buying a powerhead.