Caribsea's Ocean Direct Live Sand - my observation

[RaymondL]

Wanted to give an brief update on my experience of using Ocean Direct Sand from Caribisea - well, I chose this product based on BRSTV's past biome experiment, which they said that this product is best for establishing a new tank, and having a strong biome diversity.

I set up a new tank on May 29th with this sand, and rather than use Dr. Tim's product, I decided to try a different and cheaper product at over 50% the price, and that is Nutracycle by Hagen.
Using the sand comes with high ammonia - not knowing, I actually dose ammonia, so the ppm was over 5ppm. But in a 3 days Nitrites were already present at 2.0ppm - I was amazed at this as my previous build, it took over 2.5 weeks to register Nitrites (I used Caribisea Special Grade Argonite, and Dr. Tim's One and Only). Within 13 days, Nitrites reached zero, which is over half the time compared to my last tank. I'd say the tank is cycled after 14 days - I dosed 2ppm Ammonia today just to confirm this and that Nitrites will be zero in 24 hours, but so far it's promising.

I believe that the Live Sand product actually works and has primed and created the biome necessary off the bat. I know many here and there's an ongoing debate about this product and as well that the sand should be rinse as it's murky. I did experience cloudy and murky water, but all has cleared up - even when stirring up the sand a bit, it's not absolutely crazy murky as from the beginning.

My thought is that I will use this product in my next aquarium - although I don't know if I'm going to be setting up another as 2 is enough for now . Again, this 'experiment' might be because of the Nutracyle hagen bacteria that I use, but I am doubtful as I have used this in the past, but did not get cycling results this quickly.

 

[Peace River]

Good feedback - thanks for sharing! Two tanks is enough until you have three, then five, then...

 

[BiCoastal]

Wanted to give an brief update on my experience of using Ocean Direct Sand from Caribisea - well, I chose this product based on BRSTV's past biome experiment, which they said that this product is best for establishing a new tank, and having a strong biome diversity.

I set up a new tank on May 29th with this sand, and rather than use Dr. Tim's product, I decided to try a different and cheaper product at over 50% the price, and that is Nutracycle by Hagen.
Using the sand comes with high ammonia - not knowing, I actually dose ammonia, so the ppm was over 5ppm. But in a 3 days Nitrites were already present at 2.0ppm - I was amazed at this as my previous build, it took over 2.5 weeks to register Nitrites (I used Caribisea Special Grade Argonite, and Dr. Tim's One and Only). Within 13 days, Nitrites reached zero, which is over half the time compared to my last tank. I'd say the tank is cycled after 14 days - I dosed 2ppm Ammonia today just to confirm this and that Nitrites will be zero in 24 hours, but so far it's promising.

I believe that the Live Sand product actually works and has primed and created the biome necessary off the bat. I know many here and there's an ongoing debate about this product and as well that the sand should be rinse as it's murky. I did experience cloudy and murky water, but all has cleared up - even when stirring up the sand a bit, it's not absolutely crazy murky as from the beginning.

My thought is that I will use this product in my next aquarium - although I don't know if I'm going to be setting up another as 2 is enough for now . Again, this 'experiment' might be because of the Nutracyle hagen bacteria that I use, but I am doubtful as I have used this in the past, but did not get cycling results this quickly.

I was looking up info on this sand and I didn’t see much info other than the biome part. Thanks for the detailed view. How does it hold up to flow in the tank? I would expect it would be fine for LPS style flow in the tank but what about high flow like an sps tank. I am planning a new tank and want to try it out but concerned the flow will keep the sand suspended in water Column (the smaller particles)

 

[Spare time]

I used it but I would probably sift out the finer sand particles before Id use it again in another aquarium

 

[BiCoastal]

I used it but I would probably sift out the finer sand particles before Id use it again in another aquarium

Thanks. What was the flow in your tank? Did the fine particles blow everywhere? How did you fix it?

 

[sc50964]

Wanted to give an brief update on my experience of using Ocean Direct Sand from Caribisea - well, I chose this product based on BRSTV's past biome experiment, which they said that this product is best for establishing a new tank, and having a strong biome diversity.

I set up a new tank on May 29th with this sand, and rather than use Dr. Tim's product, I decided to try a different and cheaper product at over 50% the price, and that is Nutracycle by Hagen.
Using the sand comes with high ammonia - not knowing, I actually dose ammonia, so the ppm was over 5ppm. But in a 3 days Nitrites were already present at 2.0ppm - I was amazed at this as my previous build, it took over 2.5 weeks to register Nitrites (I used Caribisea Special Grade Argonite, and Dr. Tim's One and Only). Within 13 days, Nitrites reached zero, which is over half the time compared to my last tank. I'd say the tank is cycled after 14 days - I dosed 2ppm Ammonia today just to confirm this and that Nitrites will be zero in 24 hours, but so far it's promising.

I believe that the Live Sand product actually works and has primed and created the biome necessary off the bat. I know many here and there's an ongoing debate about this product and as well that the sand should be rinse as it's murky. I did experience cloudy and murky water, but all has cleared up - even when stirring up the sand a bit, it's not absolutely crazy murky as from the beginning.

My thought is that I will use this product in my next aquarium - although I don't know if I'm going to be setting up another as 2 is enough for now . Again, this 'experiment' might be because of the Nutracyle hagen bacteria that I use, but I am doubtful as I have used this in the past, but did not get cycling results this quickly.

How did you know the sand had ammonia to begin with & how much were you trying to establish with the ammonia dosing?

 

[Spare time]

Thanks. What was the flow in your tank? Did the fine particles blow everywhere? How did you fix it?

My tank has moderate flow. It's a mixed reef. The sand gobies lift up the tiny particles and those get carried up to the powerheads

 

[RaymondL]

I was looking up info on this sand and I didn’t see much info other than the biome part. Thanks for the detailed view. How does it hold up to flow in the tank? I would expect it would be fine for LPS style flow in the tank but what about high flow like an sps tank. I am planning a new tank and want to try it out but concerned the flow will keep the sand suspended in water Column (the smaller particles)

There's no issue with flow and this substrate - of course everything is within reason on how powerful you plan on turning up the flow, but in my case, no issue. It's not fine sand, but the particles are large enough. One thing you need to keep in mind, if you use the substrate straight off without rinsing you might panic because it is very cloudy. If you search on this substrate it's 50/50 - some say rinse, some say don't, and Caribsea says absolutely don't. I didn't and the entire tank was very cloudy on first set up - I used the bio magnetic pack that came with the substrate and in 24 hours water was crystal clear. I manually removed the foam from the surface of the water and all good.

 

[Spare time]

There's no issue with flow and this substrate - of course everything is within reason on how powerful you plan on turning up the flow, but in my case, no issue. It's not fine sand, but the particles are large enough. One thing you need to keep in mind, if you use the substrate straight off without rinsing you might panic because it is very cloudy. If you search on this substrate it's 50/50 - some say rinse, some say don't, and Caribsea says absolutely don't. I didn't and the entire tank was very cloudy on first set up - I used the bio magnetic pack that came with the substrate and in 24 hours water was crystal clear. I manually removed the foam from the surface of the water and all good.

I think the reason you may not have issues with flow but I do is because the sand is not uniform, so I may have gotten more small size grains than you. For me, the flow is definitely an issue and I don't have a high flow tank