Thinking about adding Sand/water from NY beach. Advice?

[Dkmoo]

Hi All

I'm thinking about adding some sand from the NY beaches - no, not the cesspool from the NYC beaches - much further out on Long Island. A few questions hoping to get some input - esp if you are local.. @Paul B maybe? would much appreciate your input.

1) Over the July/4th week I'm making a trip out to the tip of Long island by the Lavender Fields - any good beaches in the area that i can pull some sand? (or along the way)
2) later in the month I'm going to Fire Island Pines - are those sand good enough to take back?
3) When i do take it back - what's the process of adding it to tank? leave it in a container and observe/quarantine first? or dump it all in right away? If quarantine first, what should I do to make sure the microfauna stays alive? Looking to add maybe 1 liter worth for a 29G DT


TY!

 

[Snoopy 67]

Watch the salinity, it's usually lower.
& Paul B. will know more for sure.

 

[Subsea]

The beaches you mentioned are fine for collecting NSW. With respect to micro fauna, @Paul B usually went into back bays & lagoons.

no quarantine.

 

[Paul B]

You really can't use sand from Long Island beaches unless you just want a little bottom coverage. It is much to fine and water won't penetrate it very well. I have used it in very small tanks and in a short while will develop hydrogen sulfide.

Even here where I collect some creatures and bacteria, just 1/4" below these mud snails the sand is black from hydrogen sulfide.





But there are many porous rocks you can collect for decoration and bacteria. You can find many barnacle covered things (bottles, shells, rocks etc.) that work great. You can add them with the living barnacles but they won't live long.





I did a lot of collecting here in Port Washington at low tide which is great. The place is filled with fiddler crabs, snails and tiny horseshoe crabs (which I do not collect) You can find barnacle covered rocks literally covered in amphipods.

 

[Jposch]

Yeah, skip the sand, "Beach sand" is typically trucked in silica sand, which is real fine grain, and doesn't add any buffer capacity,not that sand really does much of that. Silica sand doesn't actually leach phosphates more than aragonite, but it will be darker color when wet vs. Aragonite.

 

[ZoWhat]

You should just use the sand found in cigarette waste containers...saves you all kinds of money. Just watch out for Security Guards when nabbing some

 

[SDK]

I like collecting in Greenport. If you scuba or snorkel out a bit and turn over some rocks below the low tide line, there is good microfauna in the rocky sand beneath.

The footing area of the old Ponquogue Bridge is also a great place that gets flushed regularly with clean seawater. Just be mindful of sometimes grumpy fishermen, and stay out of the channel if you are not a strong swimmer who is not freaked out by strong tidal flows.

If you can get back out there in early September with a net and some snorkel gear, small reef fish that traveled up on the gulf stream can be found at both places. It's been a while for me, but I used to regularly grab several species of butterfly fish and other random surprises.