Please post pics of your black sand

[johns120]

I'm considering going with black sand. I know it is very uncommon and heard of some negative feedback such as looking dirty but nonetheless. I believe it is more common for use with seahorses for "Hawaiian tanks". If any one has black sand please post pics and give feedback-any regrets?
Thank you.

 

[johns120]

Also searching the web, found this so far....

 

[johns120]

quite expensive, $20 for small bag

 

[johns120]

Do you know that on this forum, there are 8290 matches for "black sand"

 

[johns120]

This pic is from technoshaman.

 

[Arch01]

Wish I could post one for you, but it looks like you're having a good discussion on your own :wink:

Have you looked through the nano forum? I think its investigators reef that uses black sand. Nice looking stuff if you don't mind the price. I know it won't be going in my 180.

Alex
_________________
CSI: Miami Forum

 

[investigator1]

http://reefs.org/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=43719

 

[Anonymous]

I have one in my FW planted tank, but sorry no pics yet. Lot of planted tank people use black, it looks great. I think if I ever get around to a nano reef I will use black sand.

For my FW I used something called eco-complete which you wouldn't want for a reef as it contains nutrients, but as a top layer I used a finer black sand called tahitian moon. Very nice stuff, easily available also.

You might get a mod to move this to the general forum....

 

[Anonymous]

Can't see too much of the sand, but there it is.

 

[johns120]

Sharky,
How did you like it? Any regrets? Do you still get the shimmering effect from the MH on the black sand?

 

[johns120]

Found a few more myself on nano-reef.com, definately seems more popular in nano world, still not sure about doing it in my 75.

 

[Anonymous]

FWIW, that guy has some seriously receded corals

 

[Anonymous]

Sharky,
How did you like it? Any regrets? Do you still get the shimmering effect from the MH on the black sand?

I had it in a large fish-only system, so no input on effects on corals or anything like that. I know that the black sand is volcanic in nature, and has little to no buffering capability. I liked the look of it--it was very fine grade. Actually it was odd (in a cool way)--relatively large grains (bit bigger than sugar sand), but almost silty in feel. Didn't clump much (but I stirred it often to keep the detritus from building up.

The one big downfall of this type of sand in a reef, as far as I know, is that it has almost no buffering capabilities.

For pure looks though, it was pretty cool.

 

[Anonymous]

Well, I don't think people really depend on sand for buffering anyway. The only practical downside I see is that the reflective qualities of white sand are probably fairly great, bringing illumination into the shaded aspects of corals.

 

[johns120]

In consideration of above replys, looking at black sand photos and reviewing info on DSB and BB I have decided to stay with my white sand and reduce depth to 1-2 inches in my 75. I now have two 5 gallon salt buckets of live sand to bring to my lfs for store credit. I was going to do this slowly but decided to do it all at once. I have started to test daily and am prepared to do frequent water changes. So far so good. My protein skimmer is running very wet with gate valve fully open. This is okay though as it is forcing me to keep up on replacement of sw, hence water change. I also took out some base rock that was under the sand in the rear. I rearranged the aquascaping and it is more open in the rear providing better flow. I want to take this opportunity to thank everyone for their replys.