Live sand help!

[UnoZeus]

So, first post.

I am in the research stages right now, but I am planning on starting up my first "real" saltwater aquarium. I have faily limited saltwater experiece, but I have been running several freshwater tanks for years.

Here is the deal....

The local pet store says I should buy their packaged "live sand." It looks as though it is made by a company named LiveSand. http://www.livesand.com/

However, I have found several other sources that suggest buying it from other sources.

Here is my question.....

Where should I buy my live sand? Go with the pet store.... or somewhere else? Any suggestions?

 

[WhoDey]

If you buy that product, simply buy it for the color and grain size only, do not buy it for the advertised "instant cycle", its just another gimmick. The best practice (imho) is to have an established tank supply a donor amount of live sand to seed in essence what is lifeless wet sand. Others may say look at Garf, ect ect..

 

[UnoZeus]

What is Garf?

If I could find someone to sell or give me donor sand, how much would I need to seed a 29 gallon?

Are there any quality and price efficient places to buy online?

 

[ElMonoCalvo]

http://www.garf.org/index.shtml

Getting a donation from an established tank never hurts but I'd say it's not absolutely necessary. I've bought "live" sand in the past from a LFS and see pods and other hitch-hiker type stuff after cycling.

 

[Ben1]

Don't forget alot of the pods and such will seed th sand from the live rock if you use live rock.

WHat are you trying to do with the sandbed? Are you using it as a filter. doing deep sand bed, shallow bed for aesthetics or what?

 

[Anonymous]

Don't forget alot of the pods and such will seed th sand from the live rock if you use live rock.

WHat are you trying to do with the sandbed? Are you using it as a filter. doing deep sand bed, shallow bed for aesthetics or what?

Aye, gotta put bells on Ben's post here. Live rock will do the job for you, post-cure, just as well as live sand. What you're really after is an initial inoculation of nitrifiers, and then you're going to need to feed them (I've used a bit of fish food to good success for this, though it's difficult to gauge how much food to feed the microbes so that fish of a particular size or number may be added). Just enough to keep 'em going, pinch or so a day will do it.

 

[UnoZeus]

Well, it was suggested by a friend that I buy a 20 lb bag of the "live sand" and a 20 lb bag of dry sand. I think the dry sand is also made of aragonite. That way the "live sand" would eventually wake up the dry sand. Plus, the dry sand is cheaper.

So, what you guys are saying is that I could buy just dry sand, and the live rock will come with the needed organisms to populate the aquarium and wake up the sand.

I think with 40 lb in a 29 gallon, I should have a fairly thick sandbed. I was under the impression that a thick sandbed was beneficial to filtration.

 

[Anonymous]

Yeah, pretty much. Think of it as culturing or farming, because that's exactly what this stage of the process is going to be--culturing an inoculation of microbes so that they're present in sufficient numbers to process the more toxic nitrogenous waste products. In order to have enough and really get them going, they need to be fed. Not much is necessary, and only after the live rock is cured BY YOU.

Even going from store to home can bring about a degree of die-off, this is what curing will address. The die-off will produce some compounds that will be processed by the microbes, but once compounds such as ammonia get above certain levels (I don't remember the level, it's been too long) it will kill off some of the microbes. It takes them some time to rebuild their numbers once things get back in order.

But, essentially, yes, just buy the dry sand, use some good live rock and save yourself some $$ where you can, without actually cutting corners that shouldn't be cut.

 

[UnoZeus]

Alrighty. Sounds good. I will just buy the dry sand and use the live rock to get things going.

My LFS has an awesome setup for curing live rock. I think it is 6.99 lb. You suggest curing it on my own though? :?

 

[Anonymous]

No matter how cured, most live rock loses a bit more life each time it's transferred from one container to another. That creates the need for another curing period, however long that takes. Not all, but most. Just plan on it and you won't be surprised or disappointed.