New member Somerset West

pHishman

pHishman

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Hi all, new to MASA but not to saltwater.

Currently in the process of setting up a tank, sump and refugium.

Tank is 965 x 500 x 600 high, built by a mate and I around 3 weeks ago. Unfortunately no photos were taking during the build, but I will upload some pics of the system running a bit later.

Sump is a 3 compartment tank about 60litres housing an old Red Sea berlin skimmer ive had for ages. Have an 80 litre refugium plumbed into the system.

I have a 1.5m x 600 x 800 high running for about 5 years now that is home to 2 frenatus clowns, 2 yellow tail blue damsels, a mesoleucus angel and a scopas tang. All the fish have been in there for 4 years now other than the angel which ive had for around 9 years. The plan is to move the 30 or so kgs of live rock and aragonite over to the new tank as I need the old tank for my discus fish ( I know I know.....bathwater right?? )

Anyway, good to be here and hope to gain some valuable advice.

Andrew
 
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welcome to MASA Andrew, not the busiest days on the forum today but i'm sure more guys will reply as the evening progresses.

Wish you the best of luck with your new ventures. Secret is to read read and re-read, then sometimes take the advice given on here and do further investigation for yourself.
 
Hi guys and girls, thanks for the warm welcome.

Ok, here is a photo of my set up. Im now wanting to go ahead and add substrate to the refugium. Would it be ok to use playsand in the refugium and let it double up as my DSB? At the moment ive chucked some aragonite in from my existing tank to kick start the protein skimmer but I can always take it out if this isn't suitable for a DSB. All advice welcome.

IMG_5186.jpg
 
Ok, just been to look at sand for the DSB and need some advice please:

can I use the following sand, apparently it is a silica sand from consol glass.

img-5190.jpg
 
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@459b

Thanks for the reply. What is your opinion on the sand in the pic above? Its not playsand but a slightly more coarse grain. Its a silica sand from consol. Will the silica cause problems down the line, because if it will then I must rather go for the actual playsand.

Thanks

Andrew
 
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Actual playsand is also silica so provided the stuff from consol doesn't have any nasty things, then it will be fine.
 
Hi NJ

Not too sure which of those grades of sand it is. I went down to our local sand and stone supplier and what they sell as ' play sand ' was also labelled ' macsand ' ( Macassar sand ) but the grain size looked much smaller then sugar grains. Then the sales lady remembered they had some left over bags of silica sand that they had ordered for someone else which they got from consol. The photo above is a sample of the actual sand she gave me.

The grains are not as fine as their ' play sand ' .
 
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pHishman said:
Would it be ok to use playsand in the refugium
Click to expand...
I use playsand in my remote DSB

Just wash it like a 100 times as it is filthy as can be. Does not matter if they say it is washed or not.

I would use the aragonite in the display and the playsand in the refugium tank.
 
That sand can be sieved or not I have seen a lot of crap come out of it. Rather be cautious. And also seen it cleaned would still need to be washed and inspected very well.
 
Thanks man. So where is the best place to get around 30 litres of playsand? And whats your opinion of the silica sand in the pic I posted?
 
So I tried my hand at scaping the tank today. Didn't realize how much live rock I have. More than half of it is still sitting in my current rig. Once ive set up the DSB I will be adding the remaining lr to the refugium and sump.

img-5199.jpg
 
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