Tahitian Moon Sand Experience?

[intarsiabox]

I am in the process of setting up a FOWLR tank but still want to keep motile invertebrates as I enjoy these as much as the fish. I am still deciding on whether to use aragonite sand or try Carib-Sea's Tahitian moon sand instead. I don't imagine the moon sand provides any benefits like pH buffering but does it have any downsides? Is it a problems for sand sifters or burrowers? Does the black color reduce algae production due to less light reflectivity? If anyone has any experience with it please chime in! Thanks!

[Slyguy00]

I use the tahitian moon sand and I love it. But it is a lot of work to keep clean. Shows every little spec of crap. As far as creatures go nothing seems to have a problem with it. Its good sand, but if you choose that route, prepare for a little extra work keeping it clean.

[intarsiabox]

Originally Posted by Slyguy00

I use the tahitian moon sand and I love it. But it is a lot of work to keep clean. Shows every little spec of crap. As far as creatures go nothing seems to have a problem with it. Its good sand, but if you choose that route, prepare for a little extra work keeping it clean.

Thanks for sharing your experience. I think I'll just stick to aragonite.

[Coasting]

Never used black sand for Salt water, however if I set up another tank, I will with out a 2nd thought. Kinda wish it was easier to switch my current tank to the black.
Ive used it for my Goldfish who I keep at a ph of 8.5 so the buffering is no issue. It obviously doesn't help keep your ph up, but not having an aragonite type sand definitely does NOT affect my ph in any way. (No live rock with them either since they are goldies...) They are always on the bottom chewing on bits of sand hoping it has food left in it and have seen no damage to mouths or gills. So can't imagine it causing too many issues for most inverts.
Have also used it with Cichlids and some have been "burrowers" and again, no issues with it harming any of those guys, however my Yellow labs did end up with a bit of a black tinge to their slime coating when it came to always hiding in their cave.

[intarsiabox]

I read a few other posts about having to constantly clean the sand bed to keep it looking good, I don't really want to be cleaning the sand every day. However I did read a post were the person mixed black sand with aragonite 50/50 and it hides any debris on the tank floor. The tank still had a really different look to it as well. I might go this route. I'm not concerned about pH buffering anyway as my current and previous tanks were bare bottom without issue.

[Coasting]

Honestly, I don't find my black ever looks dirty, especially in comparison to the aragonite in my salt tank. And goldfish **** like crazy. So I cant even begin to imagine that it would look any dirtier in a salt tank. Even in the photos SlyGuy00 posts of his tank, the black sand doesn't look dirty, unless Nick cleans it before he takes pictures lol

Heres a few pictures, honestly I never gravel vacuumed that cichlid tank once and those photos are from after they had been set up like that for a few months, the larger black "pebbels" you see are bits of Fluval substrate I had in the pots with the plants, which of coarse had been dug out.

1st is GF tank, 2nd is tank prior to cichlids so sand is fresh at this point. The rest are from after dirty cichlid use. And you can see the black tinted yellow fish.
Both freshie tanks are lit by T5HO, so growing algae was never an issue lol

[intarsiabox]

Your sand does look pretty good. Thanks for the photos! I have to do some more pondering I guess. With my BB tanks the LR always ended up producing a thin layer of sand on the tank floor as well so not sure how long before I had a mixed sand bed anyway.

[Slyguy00]

Salt water is alot different then fresh, and will accumulate a lot more debris then fresh. I know other people with the same sand and they say the same thing. Hard to keep looking black and clean. I usually have to clean mine once every week or two. When it is clean it sure looks good though