Sand for new reef question

[Krazyandy]

I hope I'm posting this in the right category but here it goes. I'm finally setting up my new reef and I've decided I
Going with black sand. I saw at Petco they have black sand and it's safe for marine aquariums and it is a fine sand. I'm curious to see if anyone else has used the stuff in their reef. I can't seem to find if it's worth the money. $18 for 20 lbs just dry sand.

Here is the link
http://m.petco.com/product/115883/Petco-Black-Aquarium-Sand.aspx

Thanks

 

[trackfast]

I would rather go with something like this : http://www.drsfostersmith.com/product/prod_display.cfm?pcatid=7318&ref=NA&subref=NA&cmpid=PPC-G-NA
It's about the same price and you would be getting aragonite sand.

(And the live sand vs dry sand debate can be started in another thread!) lol

 

[steveo9043]

Check out Aquapro, they have the Hawaiian black live sand. I'm thinking of using it on my new build too. I heard black sand is magnetic so be careful using a mag float if you decide to use it.

 

[Krazyandy]

Is getting aragonite sand that important you think? Would mixing a bag of aragonite and the Petco sand be a bad option or going all aragonite be better?

 

[Krazyandy]

If it helps it's a 40 breeder so I'd be buying 40lbs so could I mix 20lbs of Petco and 20lbs of aragonite?

 

[trackfast]

I think it's strange that the Petco sand warns "3. Do not scrub or rub together." Don't you rub it together when rinsing? I would use all aragonite but if you want the Petco sand go with it.

 

[Krazyandy]

I think I'm going to get 10 lbs of white to mix in with the black so wheither it's bad or not it shouldn't hurt the chemistry since I'll only be using a little. I'll still get 40 of black love aragonite sand like you mentioned from drs. I was just curious to see if anyone has had any bad experiences with the pecto sand in the reef

 

[Triggerdood]

I used the Caribsea Super Naturals black sand in my reef. No complaints, not sure about the Petco sand though.

 

[Smitty]

The fiancé has that fine black sand from petco in her new tank and it looks nice in there. I'm not worrying about the buffering because of the amount of live rock in the tank to help with that.

 

[wld1783]

The fiancé has that fine black sand from petco in her new tank and it looks nice in there. I'm not worrying about the buffering because of the amount of live rock in the tank to help with that.

Dont be too sure.

I have a rather large mixed reef using a 440 gal tub a refuge.

Back in the day I stocked it with several hundred pounds of the good Southdown sand.

This allows for less dosing as the lower PH regions of the sand release the proper nutrients/chemicals

Just food for thought.

Bill