How much sand? Can I mix sand types?

[mxzx8004]

Hi all,

I bought a 40lb bag of Caribea Pink Fiji sand for our Reefer 350, however I am understanding that is not quite enough. I also didn't consider purchasing live sand originally as we have live rock that has cycled and is in its own tank but now I'm thinking some live sand couldnt hurt. I will likely use a piece of PVC pipe to pour the sand down since the water is already in the tank (unless someone has a better suggestion of adding sand to a tank with water ?)

Would there be any benefit to mixing the sand types? Say with a bag of 20lb live sand (Hawaian Black for some cool colour differnce), or a bag of live Pink Fiji to maintain colour, I just thought the black might look cool mixed in . Of course, if this is a useless initiative, I'll just get another 20lbs of the dry Pink Fiji.

Thanks for any input

 

[brandon429]

you are about to opaque out your tank unless you pre rinse that sand

take a handful of the sand, any mix you're wanting/it's ok to mix/ and add it into a test clear glass of water. see that cloud? don't do that to your reef.

pre rinse it like we did here for nine years below

(that thread answers the question about bacteria in the sand, because its nine years of rinsing you can see the bacteria don't matter)

 

[brandon429]

Official Sand Rinse and Tank Transfer thread

If you are reading this thread to cure a tank invasion from a link I sent you, we do not need to identify your type of invasion here we do not need you to test anything at anytime regarding nitrate, phosphate etc Above all, we do not need to see a microscope slide picture of your invasion at...

www.reef2reef.com

many reports are out there of black sand scratching tanks by being magnetic and getting caught up in scrapers depending on details.

 

[mxzx8004]

you are about to opaque out your tank unless you pre rinse that sand

take a handful of the sand, any mix you're wanting/it's ok to mix/ and add it into a test clear glass of water. see that cloud? don't do that to your reef.

pre rinse it like we did here for nine years below

(that thread answers the question about bacteria in the sand, because its nine years of rinsing you can see the bacteria don't matter)

Sorry, I should have mentioned we were going to prerinse the non live sand. Are you saying to rinse the live sand as well? Just to clarify

 

[brandon429]

yep that entire thread is caribsea arrive alive sand. it's a gimmick; rinsing doesn't hurt at all. 99% of jobs there are live sand from the bag. the 1% I wouldn't rinse: real live ocean sand from TBS> if it's bagged/pre rinse it in tap in little sections in a bucket over and over it will take literally 5 hours I bet for a few bags. that bad...final rinse in saltwater or RO to evacuate the tap and add it in with bags or the pvc pipe

*pre test your rinsed sections in the clear glass of water to be sure 100% cloudless. I like to use saltwater as the final rinse step over RO water because if you're adding a lot of extra sand wet with freshwater that can drop salinity fast.

 

[mxzx8004]

Official Sand Rinse and Tank Transfer thread

If you are reading this thread to cure a tank invasion from a link I sent you, we do not need to identify your type of invasion here we do not need you to test anything at anytime regarding nitrate, phosphate etc Above all, we do not need to see a microscope slide picture of your invasion at...

www.reef2reef.com

many reports are out there of black sand scratching tanks by being magnetic and getting caught up in scrapers depending on details.

WOW, thank you!!!

 

[mxzx8004]

yep that entire thread is caribsea arrive alive sand. it's a gimmick; rinsing doesn't hurt at all. 99% of jobs there are live sand from the bag. the 1% I wouldn't rinse: real live ocean sand from TBS> if it's bagged/pre rinse it in tap in little sections in a bucket over and over it will take literally 5 hours I bet for a few bags. that bad...final rinse in saltwater or RO to evacuate the tap and add it in with bags or the pvc pipe

*pre test your rinsed sections in the clear glass of water to be sure 100% cloudless. I like to use saltwater as the final rinse step over RO water because if you're adding a lot of extra sand wet with freshwater that can drop salinity fast.

What great information, thank you VERY much. I look forward to learning lots from you. I will add in the 20lb bag of wet and we will get to washing .

Just since your so knowledgable, would 60lbs total be adequate for our Reefer350?

 

[brandon429]

I only reef in a tiny little vase of 1 gallon he he so that means I'm not good at knowing bag amounts for large tanks. my own sandbed has the dimensions of a large glass of tea lol. I just know pre rinsing is awesome and we can use it to transfer/upgrade/downgrade/relocate thirty thousand dollar sps reefs though, all without clouding. not quite sure how many bags it'll take. try and search out someone who has that size tank and see if they've posted recently/send them a message to verify amounts needed

welcome to Reef2Reef!

 

[mxzx8004]

One last question, would it be silly to use the special grade live sand, so adding

I only reef in a tiny little vase of 1 gallon he he so that means I'm not good at knowing bag amounts for large tanks. my own sandbed has the dimensions of a large glass of tea lol. I just know pre rinsing is awesome and we can use it to transfer/upgrade/downgrade/relocate thirty thousand dollar sps reefs though, all without clouding. not quite sure how many bags it'll take. try and search out someone who has that size tank and see if they've posted recently/send them a message to verify amounts needed

welcome to Reef2Reef!

Thank you so much again. One last question, would it be silly to use the special grade live sand, so adding a bit of a larger sand to the finer grain?

 

[brandon429]

we've had people mix those, during the pre rinse process it will all balance out just fine. no prob

 

[mxzx8004]

Evening, this is about 1 hour post adding, well I think. About 1.5 bottles of wine LOL.

Thanks again for your advice, It's a bit murky still, I cannot for the life of me imagine ANYONE adding sand without washing it after doing the process!

 

[brandon429]

That’s really good it’ll be fine by this time tomorrow and actually it’s probably not any in the water but a fine film stuck to glass which will slough off easily once you get the reef going, well done