Thoughts on black sand

Zoalover34 · May 20, 2009

Im getting ready to set up a 33g tank and was thinking about black sand? Anyone out there have any pics of their tank with the black sand?

SeaSlug · May 20, 2009

I haven't heard to many reefers who like it ( some do ) IMO the white sand not only looks more natural but reflects the light better for corals .

ficklefins · May 20, 2009

I personally don't like it, and I also don't like blue backgrounds either.

Pazazz · May 20, 2009

Not for me either

acro86 · May 21, 2009

after having black sand for a year and 1/2 i wish i would have set up with white sand.
its cool in the begging and it dose make colors pop alittle bit more but its not benifecial at all in any knid of way.

thomasdo87 · May 21, 2009

i had black sand before and I liked to it for maybe a week or 2 before I dreaded it. since then i have stuck with white.

macawmagic · May 21, 2009

why did u dread the black sand? I'm thinking about it in my tank too. just not too sure?

anybody have pics of a tank with black sand?

Psychographic · May 21, 2009

Black sand will bring out the colors in your tank, unfortunately everything that falls on it such as broken tube worm shells, bits of rock and frag plugs show up as white or grey and eventually litter the surface of the sand, at his point it does'nt look as nice.

Hypertek99 · May 21, 2009

I wanted to do black sand for the longest time. But when i saw it in person i was like wow i'm so glad i didn't. I have seen pics before all this and thought it was cool and looked good. But in person it was horrible.

memorisa · May 21, 2009

Psychographic said:
Black sand will bring out the colors in your tank, unfortunately everything that falls on it such as broken tube worm shells, bits of rock and frag plugs show up as white or grey and eventually litter the surface of the sand, at his point it does'nt look as nice.

I thought about it when I was changing my sand bed, but due to above reason, I decided to go against it. But my tank is a little big (around 265 gal.), so it may look better in a smaller tank. I then thought about going with black sand for teh fuge, thought the green and red would really pop out... but for some reason i was afraid of not noticing the sulphur build up if any was to present itself later on. (was my first fuge so didn't have enough experience in that regard).
When I was researching, the pics always looked nice; but the input from actual users is what made me come to conclusion to go with white. and thats my 2 cents.

FaviaFreak · May 21, 2009

I actually think it looks good with chalices sitting on top of the black sand, it's a nice backdrop for a lot of the colors chalices and other LPS have...IMHO of course

JR's Reef · May 21, 2009

Psychographic said:
Black sand will bring out the colors in your tank, unfortunately everything that falls on it such as broken tube worm shells, bits of rock and frag plugs show up as white or grey and eventually litter the surface of the sand, at his point it does'nt look as nice.

Agree. I have black sand jn my frag tank and its had to keep clean

AD87 · May 21, 2009

I am for the black sand. I really does help with bringing the colors out of your corals, its is a pain to keep clean but I sift my sand alot. The biggest proplem I have had is they only make the sand is a small grain size so it gets blown around if you have decent flow. I really like the barebottom look bottom of tank painted black. I will do that on my next tank.

treylane · May 21, 2009

Just set up my new tank with the "black reef sand" from these guys:
http://www.livesand.com/

It's not solid black, but a mix of browns, blacks, and even white flecks - so light-colored stuff falling on the sand doesn't make it look strange. The tank has been up 2 months and so far I'm pretty happy with it. Everybody I know who's gone with solid/jet-black sand has regretted it though.

amore169 · May 21, 2009

I will be using 260# of Arag-Alive Indo-Pacific Black Sand on my new set up, is half white and half black, hoping that it will look ok.

AlexStinson · May 21, 2009

well... here's 2 cents from a geologist....
the white sands are predominatly aragonite... so they buffer the water, and most importantly they DON't scratch glass.
black sands are composed mostly of basalts... that is an igneous rock that could potentially contain heavy metals, and most importantly it is much much harder than aragonite, thus it can scratch glass readily...

just fyi, It is common use when identifying minerals etc, to have a small square of glass, we try to scratch it with the material, thus it serves as a benchmark to tell the hardness of the material in question

glass is generally a hardness of 5.5, aragonite is around 3, and basalts are around 6-7

Poseidon · May 21, 2009

How about Calcite?

I LOVE my Gray Coast:

It is not black, more of a deep gray. With white sand, the first thing your eye 'sees' is the sand, then the corals. In my tank, the corals are the brightest thing, not the sand.

Oh, and on the debris, get a goby... Problem solved.

grknyer · May 21, 2009

Poseidon said:
How about Calcite?

I LOVE my Gray Coast:

It is not black, more of a deep gray. With white sand, the first thing your eye 'sees' is the sand, then the corals. In my tank, the corals are the brightest thing, not the sand.

Oh, and on the debris, get a goby... Problem solved.

If it's not to much to ask can we get a close up of the calcite?