What type of substrate do you use?

[gramma royale]

Hi everyone,

Since we don't have Southdown here in NorCal, I was wondering what type of sand you use. Right now, I'm using .5 - 1.17 mm Aragonite sand and some Basalite play sand which, by the way, is a complete mistake as they have sharp corners. I checked with several stores around here for any fine, sugar grade, oolitic sand and none of them have any. Oh well :D

[Tenner]

GR,

I use the "Bio-Active" sand, not sure how active or alive it really was, but I like the look and size. Just about mid-size, not too small, yet not too large.

I also used some araganite, sugar grain size. Not too pleased with it, too small, ended up with too much floating or getting blown around in the current.

Tenner

[gramma royale]

I use the same "Bio-Live" sand that you use. How's your sand infauna? I'm a follower of Dr. Shimek's DSB filtration theory, but if you've had success using the medium sized aragonite grains, then there's no reason to search the world for oolitic sand :)

[Reefer Dude]

I just use the montery beach sand from Home Depot. It is cheap and the small particles make it ideal for live sand. It does not buffer, but araganite does not buffer much either. Since I dose B-ionic I don't worry about the buffering ability. You should seach Dr. Ron's articles he has one on using silica based sand. It is cheap and works well. You can find it in white, so it looks very close to araganite. Just remeber you have to use a cacl reactor, drip kalk or use a buffer with it.

[gramma royale]

Whoa, is that what the sand's called? Is there a specific name that the beach sand is under? Thanks for the info.

[Reefer Dude]

Pretty much all the sands they sell at HD and OSH are Monterey Beach sand. Do a search for Silica based sand

[lori344]

Gramma,
I used oolitic sand (Aragamax sugar sized) I bought in Fresno, along with a small amount of Fuji live sand I bought from a lfs in Sacramento to set up the 150 & sump in 12/00...200lbs total. We also "added" it to the 80 & 40 early on in 2000. It is beautiful. I'm still working in Fresno during the week and returning home to the bay area every weekend. I'd be happy to pick some oolitic up for you... It's expensive! $35.00 for a 30 lb bag. The Reef Central Sand bed Calculator (http://reefcentral.com/calc/SandBed.htm) will help you figure out how much you need to fill your tank to the "dr ron" standard 4") I'll take a trip over to the lfs to confirm the price, look at the bag to confirm the brand name and check to see if they have a web site you can check out. If you're interested in the help in getting some... e mail me @ lori344@msn.com
~lori

Tenner,
What I did to prevent the "floating of particals" is put the sand in rubbermaids with saltwater, live rock and a powerhead for about a week before adding it to the tank. The bacteria growth kept the sand 'put' when I added it to the tank. (I got that idea here at RC) :D

[SunfishFun]

I searched everywhere and couldn't find what I wanted, so decided to try Dr. Ron's "recipe" I found online re: particle size. I think I used 2:1 ratio of size 0 and 1 sands. I bought 50 pound Fiji or something dry sands (not for building or anything) at SuperPet Warehouse in Pacheco/Concord/Pleasant Hill area. I paid ~$120 for 150 lbs. I inoculated the new dead bed for two weeks with nylon balls of my old substrate. So far so good after one month - bed is ~3.5" deep, worms and tiny stars are in it, ceriths now clean glass below surface, there are deep worm tunnels, bubbles against the sides, and diff colors. (I'd like to have seen that Monterey Sand, though.)

[dsb1829]

I have pretty much a mixed bag of different substrates. I even have crushed coral mixed in:rolleyes: . I know the cc is bad for dsb, but it was already mixed up with aragonite and Southdown that I didn't want to sift out during the already large task of tank swapping. If I had to break it down here is the setup from bottom to top on my dsb: 50-70lb of crushed coral, 100lb 1.5-3mm aragonite, 250lb southdown, 80lb pink samoan. The bed is maturing okay I guess. I am having a mysterious problem that could be associated with the dsb, or could be completely unrelated. It has been running about three months now.

I had the southdown shipped from reefland store about a year and a half back. I know a lot of folks would love to see it here on the west coast, so figured I would mention how I got some.

[lori344]

Doug,
I read your post in the main forum regarding your mystery problem.... I've been meaning to respond to you, but time has been an issue. I went through something simular (actually just got past it with the 150) I was hoping we could put our heads together and maybe figure this out, It's boggling my mind. I lost way too much without an obvious explaination. The only thing that saved most of my corals was moving them to one of our other tanks. I have some questions though... what is in your sump? Has your tank over heated (85 ++++ degrees) recently? Have any of your lps bleached? Any brown goo coming from the lps? Let me know... let's talk.

~lori

ps do you guys ever meet at each ther's houses? Would be really cool to see each other's reefs.

[Tenner]

lori344,

Thanks for the tip on the fine sand. I did wash it thoroughly, thought I got most of the floaties out.

Our club is going to start having meetings at members homes. On a every three month basis. I'll keep you and everyone else posted as things progress. Looks like our first meeting at a members home is set for January.

All, Justin turned me on to a person selling Live Sand on Ebay....very cheap. Justin got a bunch in, I've just ordered 46lbs for the Club Live Sand Project. Check it out on Ebay.

Thanks,
Matthew

[gramma royale]

Lori and Doug,

I've been experiencing what you guys have, except wuth other fatalities. I have not been able to keep a single fish in my tank for any longer than 1 month. All my corals are doing well. Though my open brain has seen some better days, the shrooms, bubble, and frogspawn corals are all doing well. Just today, I lost both my false percs. They've been in the tanks for about 2 and a half weeks :( . Before the percs, I had a royal gramma and cherub angel. Both died of what I think is marine velvet. I have been experience what you two talked about in your posts, ie severe brown, slime-algae growth and bubble corals exuding brown slime. I'm wondering if this is a diatom bloom of some sort? What do you guys think?

[lori344]

Gramma,
I didn't loose any fish, all my fish were unaffected among the fading corals and huge diatom bloom. This tank was set up the first of December 00 and started going down hill in about June/July. I have some ideas as to why I was hit so hard with the diatom. Simple, Nutrients "in" more than nutrients "out". Ie: light, food, heat vs. carbon, macro algae and wc. I punched up the good & cut back the evil... and the diatoms seemed to dissipate. I can't seem to figure out why my softies and lps decided to: bleach, recede (even peel from skeleton overnight), meltdown and produce brown goo. I was just frantic & scratching my head. The other two tanks are cared for similar to the 150, however there are some differences and my ideas are....

1. I purchased this tank used... with bio balls... I removed them (all at once) in April. Leaving no real mechanical filter 'cept the skimmer, which was a poor one. I didn't put sand bed/live rock in the sump (or) fix the skimmer until I moved the tank to the bay area (sept). What a difference! I've since read an opinion that removing the bio-balls all at once was a mistake. I still don't understand why, I was taught that 200lbs of live rock and close to 200 of live sand was sufficient filtration, regardless of what was in the sump.

2. More occasions than I care to mention, the tank reached almost 90 degrees during the summer. (when the tank was still in hot hot hot Fresno) The canopy in this tank doesn't allow for much ventilation and it took forever for the tank to cool. I recall Eric mentioning (in the coral forum) the primary reason corals bleach is due to heat or starvation. (they are not starving, I feed my corals & anems religiously)

3. tests showed perimeters were where they should be... ie calk, alk, ph, nitrite, nitrate, phosphate (i didn't test for copper... figured my shrimp & stars would have croaked long before my corals if this were the case)

I went crazy... Suspected RTN, overheating, the bio-ball thing... no research led me to a conclusive reason.

It's over now... knock on wood. But, I'd like to know what was going on so I can avoid problems & apply proper care in the future.

Anyway, I thought I could bat around a few ideas with Doug (or anyone else)... hoping that maybe we had a few situations in common that might have effected our tanks adversely.
~lori

Ps. I'm really sorry to hear about your fish loses (I hate to loose fish, oh hell they are like my babies.) :(... let's talk about how this may have happened too!

[gramma royale]

Did you experience a diatom bloom only? Or was there a sort of brown cloud in the tank as well? Did you happen to have a lot of snails die as well? If these two things happened, I'm thinking that there may have been a dinoflagellate bloom as well. Dino's thrive in heat, that's why some areas of the world get Red Tide syndrome, a form of dinos, during the hot seasons. I'm not totally sure if the dinos have anything to do with coral loss, but since most corals are not just photosynthetic, the corals may have ingested some dinos. And with some dinos being toxic, the corals that ingest them may be getting affected.

[lori344]

Mike,
Nope, no brown cloud & no snail, star or shrimp lose. Only corals and only my lps and softies. My sps, stony corals & anemone weren't looking terrific, but didn't show signs of "death" either. Just kind of blah ie: no polyp extension or little expansion. I've never heard of "red tide syndrome", but if it's cause by heat, I certainly made myself susceptible.
~lori

[dsb1829]

Well I am glad in some respects to see that I am not the only one who has come down with this plague. Gramma, I have read about your fish losses in the past. I can offer you no information on that, but my condolence on the losses.

Lori, I have been totally stumped by this. It is weird. Now some of my sps are finally showing some signs of stress. A couple look to have lost some tissue from being covered with slime algae. My porites rock looks like it is a goner. I am really glad that my rose anemones are happy and eating in our 7g nano. They were looking bad in the 180 about a week ago. I changed out about 35 gallons last night, syphoned off the top of the sand, and actually removed the algae that was on the glass from the tank. It is time consuming to do this, but if the algae is allowed to die in the tank or gets chopped up it simply feeds the growing population.

I tested all parameters to find them in good shape. Alk and Ca were rising back to respectable levels. The cuke is still alive and cranking. But soft corals are still looking bad.

I don't know what started this all, but the xenia crash was the catylist to get it into full swing. I think things may be on the right track, only water changes and time will tell. I am keeping my fingers crossed that no more of my corals bite the big one. I have already lost about $200 worth. It isn't so much the $ that hurts, but the fact that some of the corals are hard to come by.

[Aquamans Reef]

I have LS in my reef tank and CC in my FO tank. Joe

[gramma royale]

do we know what the brown slime covering the coras, LR, and substrate is? Or are we assuming that it's cyano?

[dsb1829]

I think it is just a type of slime algae. I first thought it to be daitoms, but have found it too dark and slimy. If it were diatoms it would be a lighter brown and have more substance to it. Maybe I am wrong on that one.

I am having a friend watch some of my corals for a while. Things are looking a bit better, but I need to check on my cuke this evening. I found it night before last and all was well, but it doesn't appear to be covering much gound right now. That is abnormal, so I may need to get it out before it bombs the tank. I can throw it in one of my refugiums, neither are connected to other tanks at the moment.

I will keep all updated.