aragamax sand?

[plah831]

So I need to replace my substrate because my dojo loach's barbels are getting torn up by my old stuff. I looked at some possibilities and aragamax sand caught my eye. It's very small grain (it says 0.2 - 1.22 mm), safe for even passing through gills of sandsifting fishies, and says it REDUCES NITRATE. What does this last one mean? Will it harm my plants by robbing them of food?

The tank in question is a 29 gal. Plants are Anubias barteri, A. nana, Cryptocoryne wendtii, Anachris, water sprite, and Cabomba. Pretty low maintenance stuff, but I don't want to be adding nitrates in there to no avail.

 

[phanmc]

Aragamax is aragonite sand, a carbonate sand that will buffer and likely raise your pH. It doesn't have any denitrifying properties by itself but it's small size makes it an ideal home for both aerobic and anaerobic bacterias involved in the nitrogen cycle. The anaerobic bacteria, located in the lower section of deep substrates where the oxygen levels are much lower due to the compact sand, is what reduced nitrates.

In a freshwater setup, we generally don't want an anaerobic area in the substrate due to the toxic gas that the anaerobic bacteria release. The many organisms living in the substrate of a saltwater tank alleviates that problem for saltwater tanks by burrowing through the sand and releasing the gas before it can become a lethal pocket. The same is possible in a freshwater setup, but most do not consider it worth the effort or risk since water changes in a freshwater setup is much cheaper than saltwater.

 

[plah831]

Great info, thanks! Guess I'll be going with some (cheaper) round natural river bed gravel, then.