Wahoo - found some sand!!

[Scholesy]

Great news! (for me anyway). I found a guy in Auckland (500 miles away) who has 23lb of aragonite 1.5mm particle coral sand he is sending to me!!

It isn't live or anything, but it will give me a 1" bed to replace the crushed coral, broken shell, limestone chip base I have.

I'll change about a cup per week so's not to upset anything too much.

:D :D :D :) :) ;) ;) ;) :cool: :cool:

[Scholesy]

p.s. can anyone recommend something to put in the sand? (small life, that is)

Wonder if it would be worth me getting a few hundred isopods/amphipods from a local clean rockpool to kick start the 1" of sand? I can get a huge range, from 0.25mm up to 5mm in length.

I have 3 or 4 small bristleworms (1"), about a dozen 1/3" snails, Brian the 2" starfish already in there.

And the two percs.

And some terbellid and tube worms.

And three kinds of caulerpa.

And that's it.

[Impaler]

Understand this comes from a poor college student in Texas........

I went down to the local dike here in Texas City. I do not know if you have those there, but they generally line up the entry to a ship channel. Anyway, These dikes(or jetties) are built from huge granite blocks, but smaller tank useable rocks are often in between these. I grabbed up around 30 lbs for the tank and refugium, and hauled 'em back home in seawater from the dike. Now, people have warned me about pollution and undesireable pests that can be found on texas coastline rocks, but as far as I'm concerned, this is the way to go. Thousands of little bugs to populate the refugium. Got 3 really nice anemones, too, around 1" across each. And no, they are not Aptaisia. and no, I didn't get any flatworms, and no, I did not get a Mantis......

This is what I did to supplement my coralline encrusted live rocks. Do it at your OWN risk! I will not be held responsible for your actions!:cool:

Good luck, I say do it.
HTH
Dan

[Scholesy]

I do have access to a whole bunch of clea, wonderful creatures. It is a lottery though - like Gump's box of choccies. I think small amphipods would be ok. No more bristleworms or stars. I'm scraping a few coralline-covered rocks into my tank to help it grown on my rocks