Livesand as Substrate

Hudson yes it is, to a degree.

Live sand is basically normal substrate that has been inoculated with organisms benificial to an aquarium. So you get both sand and filtering fellas straight away.

A slow way is to get the substrate you want and to seed it from a fellow reefers ESTABLISHED aquarium. that way you introduce the organisms, but still have to wait time before they estanblish their populations.

Geeting a cupfull of Substrate (best to swap some of yours with theirs) is a very good way to create diversity in your substrate, which is basically what Live Sand does.

make sence?
 
Hudsonkzn said:
I've read through some of the threads about Live Sand.

I just wanted to know if Livesand is a good to have as a Substrate in your main tank?
Click to expand...

Of course it is good, but most guys don't like the brownish colour of our sand in the main display. That is why I used reggies play sand in the main display (cause it's white) and live sand I took out under the low tide water line at Umdloti for my DSB ;)
 
The reason I ask is that I have normal seasand in my tank, and I placed a few rocks i picked up from the sea. I have since noticed little worms in the sand. Some are black and they stick out of the sand. some have little legs on the sides.

I'm not sure if these are good or bad for my tank.

Is there a picture database of the good and bad creatures that one can have in a tank?

Thanks in advance.
 
The reddish worms with legs and fine white hair is bristle worms - they are good guys and does the cleaning in the tank of all detritus and decaying matter. They can get too many if you feed too much. Can you post a picture of the others?
 
generally speaking, having things living in the sand is good :) and great feed for sand sifting fish like gobbies or wrasses.

as tobes said that sounds like a bristle worm and they really are great at getting into your LR and cleaning up the smallest of places. Some wrasse eat them too, my lunar wrass chomped a few (thanks rory for showing me that :))
 
Hudsonkzn said:
The reason I ask is that I have normal seasand in my tank, and I placed a few rocks i picked up from the sea. I have since noticed little worms in the sand. Some are black and they stick out of the sand. some have little legs on the sides.

I'm not sure if these are good or bad for my tank.

Is there a picture database of the good and bad creatures that one can have in a tank?

Thanks in advance.
Click to expand...

personally i dont like sea sand in a display due to its colour, but its cheap and it works.

i would change to aragonite if i were you and seed it with the life you have showing in the sea sand, but thats very much a personal choice :)
 
Well, I'm going to use the basic design of a 3 chamber unit.

Chamber 1 - Flow from Tank, and Skimmer
Chamber 2 - DSB - Using Sand from Umdloti and some rocks
Chamber 3 - Pump to return to the Main Tank

Dimensions: 400mm (L) x 250mm (W) x 250mm (H)

The height will depend on the Skimmer - I'm going to source a skimmer on Friday from either Northlands Pets or Natures Petland.

Should I include anything else? Or am I missing anything. I saw that some designs recomend a Bubble Catcher. Is this really necessary?
 
That is a very small sump - no way you can make it bigger?

Also remember that if you wanna put rocks on top of your DSB you need to suspend them a few centimeters above the sand with eggcrate, otherwise you'll restrict the surface area for the releasing of the nitrogen bubbles and compacting the sand.
 
Hudsonkzn said:
I have very limited space.

It's the biggest I can go. I'm hoping it will work though.
Click to expand...

Can you at least make it a bit higher then? 300 - 350mm? Because the DSB needs to be 150mm deep, and you need to leave space in the sump for the runback of water from the main tank when the power goes out or if you stop the return pump. You also said you wanna put some rock above the sand. Then it will be 150mm for DSB + 100mm for water above DSB + 50 to 100mm above the water line to the top of the sump to compensate for run back water. I would then leave the rock and rather get chaetomorpha algae and put that above the sand - you'll need a light though to grow it - a 6500kelvin energy saver globe will be OK.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom