What substrate is better?

ooja3k

ooja3k

AC Members
Jul 3, 2007
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San Luis Obispo
Well as some of you may know, i am gettinga 30gal long tank.

I am wondering about the substrate size that would be good?

Ive seen different sizes from like "oolitic" or something which is liike .1mm-1.0mm and then ive seen some like 1.0mm-2.0mm and then some larger than that...

Im going to have a 10 gal sump under my main tank, so i was wondering if the substrate should differ between the main and sump...

I know super fine grain (oolitic) is good because it is dense and helps complete the nitrification process... is this sand also ok to have in the display tank??
 
Sugar grain sized is good for a display. That's what I, and many others, have. It'll come down to personal preference. Larger grain sizes, for example crushed coral sized or similar, will tend to hold detritus more and will require more maintenance. Who really wants to do more work though?
 
Oolitic sand is fine to have in the display. You may have some issues initially if there a lot of current blowing heavily across the sand bed, but those can be overcome.

You could put different types of sand / substrate in the sump and display. In fact, depending on what your goal is, you may benefit from having different types in the two. There's tanks that have "mud" in the sump / refugium while having some type of sand in the display. There's lots of possibilities.

I've found that a mix of different sand types works best for me. In the 40g breeder I'm in the process of setting up, I'm mixing some oolitic sand with aragonite sands of varying sizes from 0.5 mm - 2.0 mm. I'm tempted to add one bag of slightly coarser sand, as my wife wants to get a shrimp / goby pair and some of the larger chunks might be good for their cave building efforts.
 
I think that would work fine. I mixed sugar sand and live sand (which was a bit larger) and I found that with the current moving around the tank, the larger stuff seems to come up to the surface and the smaller sand compacts on the bottom in drifts. There isn't a huge size difference between the two.
 
i used the sugar grain as my top layer about half of total thickness and another type with tiny seashells for the bottom to give it better aeroration and the occasional tiny seashell hanging out gives it a beach look which is what i really like....i dont like bigger grain cause it looks to FW but like many have said dont get crushed coral or even what one of my fellow reef club friend has...big shells... so its kinda w/e u like best...GL with ur choice...of and save yourself the money and dont get live sand...your choice will become live after a short time ...espially if u have a decent amount of LR
 
cool!!

i went to the lfs yesterday to figure out sumps a little bit...


he said the best thing you can do in your sump is put some like "miracle" mud or some type of mud it in.... that way it provides a very dense anaerobic area for denitrification to occur... but he said to put a small layer of fine sand over that so the mud doesn't end up in the tank...

that could work too huh...
 
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