I'm currently setting up my 55 gallon FOWLR tank and have two questoins: first one is can you use crushed corals with live sand as your substrate? Second do you have to use aragonite or any other "dead" sand with LS. I haven't made up my mind if I wanted to use really fine sand or go with the crushed coral look. I was thinking of adding around 20lbs of LS with whatever I decide to go with, does that sound like enough?
Live Sand and aragonite
- Thread starter wishmaster
- Start date
Boogiechillin
It's ok, I confuse my students too.
I would recommend going with an all-sand substrate rather than mixing crushed coral and sand. You miss out on some of the benefits of a deep sand bed (DSB) if you have a lot of crushed coral preventing anaerobic zones from forming.
As far as mixing dead and live sand, that depends on your budget. If you can afford to buy all live sand, go for it. If not, it's perfectly fine to start with a base of a few inches of dead sand that you top off with as much live sand as you can afford. If you're planning for 20lbs of live sand, then figure that you will need a good 50lb bag of dead sand to start if you want a functional DSB.
As far as mixing dead and live sand, that depends on your budget. If you can afford to buy all live sand, go for it. If not, it's perfectly fine to start with a base of a few inches of dead sand that you top off with as much live sand as you can afford. If you're planning for 20lbs of live sand, then figure that you will need a good 50lb bag of dead sand to start if you want a functional DSB.
I will go with all sand then, I can go with more live sand, but was told that the LS will eventually colonate all the sand. Is that not true? Regardless I get the jist of what your saying, go with as much LS as you can afford. Thanks