I need advice for deep sand bed

[mrcopitr]

Hi guys,

Me again, I will be setting up my first reef tank on the week with a 5 inch deep sand bed..I bought southdown sand from HD...It is very fine. SHOULD I mix coarser sand with my southdown...I read on this board that sounthdown is so fine that snails can barely stay up and that the current generated by the power head keep the sand moving and as such keep the water clowdy....What are your opinions on this and suggestion????

I want to set up the sand bed tonight, as my 100 pds of live rock (semi-cured from J&L) are arriving saturday morning...I hope that the sand will have settled by then...

Thank you
Marco.

[Shadetree]

Marco,

I added over 600 pounds to my tank for a 6" sandbed, I used Southdown also. I did not add any other coarser sand. I like the look of the fine sand myself. Once there is a bacterial coating on the sand it will stay down pretty good. You will have to use a turkey bastor for the first week or so to keep the rocks clean but it should be fine after that. I let my sand settle for two days before I turned on my skimmer and then it cleared up in a matter of hours. As for the snails, yes you will have to turn some over manually but I do not know how coarse of a material you would have to use for them to turn themselves.

Scott

[Delphinus]

Hi guys, got a question...

Do you have any info on what is the average grain size of Southdown?

(Sorry I'm sure this info is available somewhere, but I might as well in case you know the answer..)

Thanks..

[Aquattro]

<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Shadetree:
As for the snails, yes you will have to turn some over manually but I do not know how coarse of a material you would have to use for them to turn themselves.

Scott<hr></blockquote>

Scott, I have coarser sand mixed with my oolitic and I still need to flip the occasional snail..all part of the morning inspection.

[Troy F]

Tony, the info is located in the reefs.org library. I think Rob Toonen did the experiment to determine size.

[Troy F]

Sand Particle Size (http://www.reefs.org/library/article/r_toonen23.html)

Hope this works.

[Delphinus]

Thanks for the link. I was just curious. Kind of academic since I can't just run to HD and buy some.

I'm not sure exactly where we are supposed to go out and find particles in the "0.100 to 0.150 mm" range (as suggested by Dr. Shimek on RC). Seems to me even this dolomite stuff is around 0.200mm? And I remember reading somewhere that he even thought 0.300mm was too large for the majority of the DSB. images/smiles/icon_confused.gif