Substrate?mix of play sand & crushed oyster shell

[FishPassion]

I sold off all my cichlids in my 110 gallon and am converting it to a SW anemone tank. I know many years ago crushed oyster shell was a popular buffer in sw tanks as a substrate and I am planning to combine this with playsand either southdown or bomix as my substrate. With aragonite costing around a dollar a pound and oyster shell selling around twenty cents a pound, and playsand even less than twenty I am so tempted to go this route. Feed stores in the country sell oyster shell as shell maker to commercial poultry farmers, so it is safe to use. I have liverock in another tank allready waiting to be moved into the 110 and can easily scoop a cpl of cups of 4 year old livesand from one of my other tanks to kickstart the new substrate.

Any thoughts or input???

[jayghmi]

I would read the sticky on this subject. I went through the process of replacing my crushed coral with Fiji pink sand (a major pain in the #$$) and am very happy I did it. I have eliminated the hair algae and cyno that I was fighting.

Yes, the sand is expensive, but you will find everything in salt water is expensive. If I would have bought the more proven and usually more expensive option in the beginning I would have save myself allot of money in the long run.

My 2 cents.

[BeelzeBob]

nay-no on the crushed oyster. sand olny.

itll be more expensive, but in this hobby, not cutting corners, and sparing no expense really pays off in the long run.

but yea, dont just take my word for it, go read the sticky

[JohnLin]

try to find "southdown playsand", I think only Home Depot carries them. If they don't have it locally, see if they can get a pallet from another location. They are said to be almost identical to aragonite sand.

[FishPassion]

Ok, yes I read all the sticky's and reread the "crushed coral" one a cpl of times. The info I am trying to find is about "crushed oyster shell" as a partial substrate mixed with southdown or bomix playsand different material altogether but widely used in DIY liverock. My present 90 gallon has been running 5 years with a mix of 75% bomix and 25% crushed coral with no issues, mind you I have a good cleaning crew and an awesome yellow cuke that wanders around the substrate keeping it very close to white. In 5 years I havent vaccumed the substrate once but may try and give it a light going over within the next few water changes. The difference from what I have researched is that oyster shell will slowly desolve over time in your tank whereas crushed coral dissolves, leaving behind the insoluble Calcium Hydroxide which is not a contributor to pH stability. While crushed oyster shell dissolves and vanishes, letting you know when to add more, the crushed coral remains, looking good but doing nothing.

[atarax]

i think the main concern ppl have with the crushed oyster shell would be the grain size, holding detritis. I think if u could get the oyster shell pretty well powdered that it would be a great idea.

[BeelzeBob]

i think the main concern ppl have with the crushed oyster shell would be the grain size, holding detritis. I think if u could get the oyster shell pretty well powdered that it would be a great idea.

exactly. it has nothing to do with what actually make up the susbtrate, more or less the grain size of such