Tank pics with black sand?

[pbukow]

Does anybody's reef use that black sand? If you could post pics it would be much appreciated. Also any reasons why someone would or would not want to use this substrate?

[Coffman34]

I used it in my 29g Bow before I upgraded to a 65g. I have all the sand from the bow in my refuge and it's black. One thing I have noticed that is really nice about it, is that it doesn't show the nasty black,brown,and green marks from a DSB the way white sand does. And it looked pretty neat.

[BrokeColoReefer]

is there a aragonite based black sand? if not, that would be the only reason i would think it would not be as desirable. Its nice to have the buffering capabilities of aragonite based substrate..
JMO

[pbukow]

Thats true about the aragonite and the buffering properties it has. What if in my refugium i had a DSB and in the display I used the black sand? It wouldn't be ideal but it definately couldn't hurt.

PICS??? anyone

[BrokeColoReefer]

sounds good to me. people run remote DSB's all day long with bare bottom tanks. I cant imagine that black sand would be any different. Not sure how sand sifting animals will take to it if it has sharp edges like silica based sand.. i personally like the look of black sand tanks.

[BrokeColoReefer]

sounds good to me. people run remote DSB's all day long with bare bottom tanks. I cant imagine that black sand would be any different. Not sure how sand sifting animals will take to it if it has sharp edges like silica based sand.. i personally like the look of black sand tanks.

[pbukow]

I don't think I'll be using any sand sifters other than maybe 2 nassarious snails as the tank is only going to be 14gallons! (maybe a hector's or ranford goby ) I saw a pic of someones nano with a black background and black sand and it really made the colors of the corals pop! Especially the greens and blues.

So does anybody have any spare pics of their black sand tanks they wouldn't mind posting?

[pbukow]

Here is the sand i was talking about, it turns out that this particular brand is not aragonite based but like i said, throwing some regular aragonite-based reef sand in the refugium should balance it ok i think.

http://www.drsfostersmith.com/produc...24&pcatid=7324

[useskaforevil]

i heard that to really get the bufferign benefit of argronite sand you need to be in serious trouble already. i have cilica sand and i really havent noticed a problem, however i dont have tons of sps or anything too demanding

[LauraCline]

I have black sand and it looks nice except you can see every speck of stuff that lands on it. After a while it gets tons of little pieces of rock etc. on it.

[pbukow]

PICS . . . PLEASE!

[Brewen]

Check this tank out
http://archive.reefcentral.com/forum...5&pagenumber=2
Great tank with black sand.

[travdixon]

Here's mine......I personally love it, since it doesn't reflect the light as much as white sand

[Scoobaman17]

WOW.

[pbukow]

Thanks so much, had to show my girlfriend a pic of a tank with the black sand to convince her for the next tank. It worked btw, we're goin black . . . and probably won't go back

Any more out there?

[jay24k]

The buffering abilities of aragonite sand are so minimal, that it isn't even worth it. Silica or black sand will work just fine.

[JamesJR]

Originally posted by jay24k
The buffering abilities of aragonite sand are so minimal, that it isn't even worth it. Silica or black sand will work just fine.

That is so true! I would not even consider the buffering capacity of a sand as a factor in my choice of sand. Use a 2 part solution for that.


The size of the sand plays a much bigger role than its chemical composition. For most applications silica sand is fine to use. Most of the sand on reefs is composed of silica anyways. there are some instances when. So go with what you like.

[pbukow]

Dumb question alert: What is starboard? i was reading another thread of a person who used black tahitian sand and said that he wasn't completely happy with it and said he would go with starboard if he did it over again.

[magrath]

Starboard is nothing more than a plastic cutting board. People use it on the bottom of their BB tanks.

[pbukow]

Why would they use that?

[BigEivlSquid]

They use Star Board so ifthey drop a rock, is does not crack the bottom of the tank. And it helps distibute the wieght of all the rock work.

[JamesJR]

it also has some reflective properties, just like white sand has

[pbukow]

Oh, that makes sense. Thanks for the input.

Any more pics of black sand tanks? Any input/advice from anybody that is or has used it before?