Need to add sand to establish tank

[kris2001]

I have a 150g...BB established tank.

I wanna add the whitest brightest fine sand.... What's the best size that's good to reflect light?

Caribsea oolite?
I do have lot of live rock
My flow in DT is not heavy.. no mp40 etc...

 

[blaxsun]

Yes, CaribSea oolite is amazing (very white).

 

[kris2001]

Yes, CaribSea oolite is amazing (very white).

But I hear it flies all over easily with little flow?

Some use Miniflakes and Reefflakes... From Premium Aquatics... I wonder how they are

 

[blaxsun]

But I hear it flies all over easily with little flow?

Some use Miniflakes and Reefflakes... From Premium Aquatics... I wonder how they are

It can, yes. Not so much with the flow as with the fish (at least with my scenario).

 

[kris2001]

Reef flakes seem to be the most sort after... Maybe they aren't too fine!

 

[kris2001]

What about caribsea special grade?
Is it good for being bright and not flying all over the place?

Or Fiji pink sand?

 

[JNalley]

What about caribsea special grade?
Is it good for being bright and not flying all over the place?

Or Fiji pink sand?

I have the CaribSea OceanDirect, pretty sure it's the original grade, this is it:

Ocean Direct Live Reef Sand (40 lb) 0.25 - 1.0 mm - Caribsea

Shop The Best Saltwater Aquarium Equipment & Supplies at Saltwater Aquarium. We Carry Everything you will Need for your Fish Tank.

www.saltwateraquarium.com

It's also fairly bright:

I'm using Sicce Xstream SDC's in a 32.5G Fluval Flex, the Pumps run max 65% but even at 100% there's not much movement on the sand unless I let them run for days that way.

Also, This is with Whites, Blues, and Violets turned all the way up but Red and Green at 0.

 

[FIN&BONEZ]

Apologize I thought this was A how to add sand to an established reef. Not a pick out my sand for me. Gonna run away now!

 

[2Sunny]

Been using Fiji Pink for over a decade. Your problem will be in keeping it clean not in your choice of sand.

 

[kris2001]

Been using Fiji Pink for over a decade. Your problem will be in keeping it clean not in your choice of sand.

Hi
Will Fiji pink stay pinkish? Doesn't get blown around I guess?

 

[brandon429]

curious about your clouding timeframe expected

what are your plans to not cloud up the new tank? I have about five threads immediately handy one is a guy who literally turns his tank into brown mud, hundreds of dollars in coral in tow, and his post is asking why he did that, shocking



he's posting about why would he take a running reef tank cruising right along and turn it 100% opaque, his post was sort of a venting about it all. taken as a warning by me

so there's an option to not do that to your system, are you choosing that way or the milky way

the thing about sand pre rinsing, knowing exactly what your sand will do before you take guesses with it, is that many folks don't want you to do this. they demand, demand you add the sand for the cloud effect and ride it out.

their rationale is you needed the bacteria in the bag, that your tank was not just running fine without them.

you have the ability to add snowglobe clean grains to this tank, and offend it 0%

and any sand you can't rinse to that control level is too fine to use in anything but a lagoon setup slower flow. pre rinsing lets you assess what wet grains do, vs adding a huge mistake to a great running tank.

 

[Idech]

What about caribsea special grade?
Is it good for being bright and not flying all over the place?

Or Fiji pink sand?

Caribsea special grade is made especially to fit the needs of reef tanks without getting caught in power heads and such. It doesn’t fly as high as other sands.

 

[brandon429]

Caribsea special grade is made especially to fit the needs of reef tanks without getting caught in power heads and such. It doesn’t fly as high as other sands.

I use it. have a small bag getting ready for a sand swap agreed its good.

 

[brandon429]

we invented a neat pre test to see what unrinsed sand is likely to do in a reef tank addition job so the whole tank doesn't have to be one big experiment.

take a large clear glass of water 2/3 full

add one handful of the unrinsed sand directly out of the bag, select want/don't want based on water clarity and follow through

 

[TnFishwater98]

It says on the bags to add just a little at a time to established tanks. When you put the new sand down it will damage aquatic life. Here I’ll just post a pic

 

[brandon429]

thats because they dont advise rinsing it due to false bacteria fear (meaning rinsing removes viable bacteria we cannot afford to lose, so since you can't rinse, add slowly to offset cloud)

that's all false.

all that danger to aquatic life stops after rinsing, this whole thread uses that sand

that's not just adding in sections to a running reef

its totally swapping sandbeds in running reefs or doing tank upgrades, the extreme opposite of those directions, with no loss. that's the power of rinsing.

do the cup test, see if we want that opacity in a running reef take pics exactly when adding the unrinsed sand into the tank and post them pls I collect regret pics in pattern

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

if you pre rinse any sand you buy, your prepare it and know its characteristics fully. no guessing

 

[JNalley]

curious about your clouding timeframe expected

what are your plans to not cloud up the new tank? I have about five threads immediately handy one is a guy who literally turns his tank into brown mud, hundreds of dollars in coral in tow, and his post is asking why he did that, shocking



he's posting about why would he take a running reef tank cruising right along and turn it 100% opaque, his post was sort of a venting about it all. taken as a warning by me

so there's an option to not do that to your system, are you choosing that way or the milky way

the thing about sand pre rinsing, knowing exactly what your sand will do before you take guesses with it, is that many folks don't want you to do this. they demand, demand you add the sand for the cloud effect and ride it out.

their rationale is you needed the bacteria in the bag, that your tank was not just running fine without them.

you have the ability to add snowglobe clean grains to this tank, and offend it 0%

and any sand you can't rinse to that control level is too fine to use in anything but a lagoon setup slower flow. pre rinsing lets you assess what wet grains do, vs adding a huge mistake to a great running tank.

but brandon, you can add sand to a tank without creating a cloud (or at least a very tiny one that doesn't obstruct the view), there are several great methods to doing this that do not require a rinse. Using a soda bottle, or a PVC pipe, work to great effect at drastically mitigating any sort of clouding you would get from just dumping the sand in, and it allows targetted placement of sand to boot.

 

[brandon429]

Do it and post a vid of it using a cell phone / YouTube upload so we can track outcome

we have fifty pages of rinse above to track as an alternate source of action, the best way to know ideal procedure is to experiment with this ops tank perhaps, but get it on tape


whats the benefit of keeping the cloud? The tank doesn’t currently suffer from lack of anything

does it need silt

 

[JNalley]

Do it and post a vid of it using a cell phone / YouTube upload so we can track outcome

we have fifty pages of rinse above to track as an alternate source of action, the best way to know ideal procedure is to experiment with this ops tank perhaps, but get it on tape


whats the benefit of keeping the cloud? The tank doesn’t currently suffer from lack of anything

does it need silt

the soda bottle method traps the cloud in the bottle. watch a few from this youtube search query:

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=adding+sand+with+soda+bottle

 

[brandon429]

am meaning this very tank though, a live time run

add that specific caribsea Idech recommended without rinse using that method but catch it on film

and why the effort, silt is what’s being assessed and removed in the rinse, what’s the benefit of keeping the cloud vs starting out without it for fifty pages of live time jobs two completed within 24 hours

i feel there’s a lead up hint that something is wrong with prep rinsing, but there isn’t it’s shown above as total command and control.

the benefit conveyed in preps are assessment of how wet grains will behave in the main tank, and preparing sand so rock slides afterwards or powerhead dislodgements / common errors don’t produce the same clouding. The soda bottle implies no sand turning will occur from any mechanism, and if it does you’ve seen the other ten links of the opaque storm

pre rinsed sand has the perfect outcome always.

that being said, non rinsers usually get the final design since work can be skipped in the directions, just film it then the action can be put to good use for those who want to copy it