How many pounds?

[JerseyWendy]

Hi everyone,

Could someone please suggest how many pounds of sand I should purchase for my (future) 75 gallon? I would like to go with the Aragamax sand, about 2-3" deep, and am unsure whether to get 3 X 30lbs or 4 X 30lbs.

Also, will I be able to "aquascape" nicely with 100-120lbs of live rock or do I need more?

Thank you very, very much.

---
Wendy

 

[reefsandrotts]

Numbers sound good for that size tank,but the rock amount you never really know till you aquascape the tank.That amount of rock might be way to much or way to little for what you have envisioned.
HTH

 

[concept3]

plus, not to mention that certain rocks are more porous than others, hence differing in density and weight.

You can eliminate using too much rock by elevating them on a PVC rack, to aid in volume and water circulation, or using lace rock underneath and then using the good stuff on top. In time, the "not so live" liverock or base rock will turn into liverock anyways.

I'm a bad person to ask about sand

 

[JerseyWendy]

Thanks, HTH.
In other words, it all depends on the actual size of the rock I'll be getting, right?
What about the sand? 120lbs. or 90lbs.? How many inches of sand should I put inside the refugium?

---
Wendy

 

[JerseyWendy]

plus, not to mention that certain rocks are more porous than others, hence differing in density and weight.

You can eliminate using too much rock by elevating them on a PVC rack, to aid in volume and water circulation, or using lace rock underneath and then using the good stuff on top. In time, the "not so live" liverock or base rock will turn into liverock anyways.

I'm a bad person to ask about sand

LOL @ the sand comment. I saw your pictures, Merv - your tank(s) leave me completely speechless. (<-- yes, that IS possible.) GORGEOUS!!!! You have no idea how you inspired me when I started reading how you were setting up your 75 gallon. I know, I know - that's a thing of the past, but hey, I'm just starting. :-[

I saw your pics of the PVC rack, too and have tons of ideas, but don't know if it'll be possible to achieve. I.E. using PVC piping to create an arch of some sort. It would require drilling the rock, correct? If so - I think I'll chicken out.

---
Wendy

 

[reefsandrotts]

for arches if you don't want to drill and wiretie you can look into manmade rock you can find kits on ebay that have custom arches and stuff.
HTH

 

[concept3]

I saw your pictures, Merv - your tank(s) leave me completely speechless.


It would require drilling the rock, correct? If so - I think I'll chicken out.

---
Wendy

THANK YOU! 8) *blush blush* 8)

drilling the rock is really no big deal. If it's porous enugh, it's like a hot knife on butta! AND even if you screw it up? what's a few extra holes in a piece of liverock anyways?!? More holes to mount your frag plugs, that what!

 

[mott768]

Hey Wendy,
tank and stand is looking good... a good rule of thumb to go by when deciding how much rock is 1.25 - 1.5 LBS per gallon and if you want more you could always add it as you go.

 

[Subliminal]

You can eliminate using too much rock by elevating them on a PVC rack, to aid in volume and water circulation...

Hey Concept,

Could you elaborate on this a bit?

Thanks!

damon

 

[concept3]

You can eliminate using too much rock by elevating them on a PVC rack, to aid in volume and water circulation...

Hey Concept,

Could you elaborate on this a bit?

Thanks!

damon

Sure!


Here is mine:

follow the thread here, it's in a little more detail.
http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=535632&perpage=25&pagenumber=18

 

[Carlo]

Hi everyone,

Could someone please suggest how many pounds of sand I should purchase for my (future) 75 gallon? I would like to go with the Aragamax sand, about 2-3" deep, and am unsure whether to get 3 X 30lbs or 4 X 30lbs.

Also, will I be able to "aquascape" nicely with 100-120lbs of live rock or do I need more?

Thank you very, very much.

---
Wendy

2"-3" is sort of in "no-mans land". It's not deep enough to get a good denitrification affect and not really thin enough to be considered a thin sand bed.

I have personally tried deep sand beds, thin sand beds and the 2-3" sand beds and I have found the best to be the thin sand bed. A thin sand bed is easier to take care of. You can syphon it when doing water changes. You can stir it up, etc and not worry about crashes. I'd go to the the level of your trim (if any on the tank) or just below the trim line. I'd say use the sand in the display more for aethetics then anything else. Also don't worry about buying "live" sand if you already have good rock. The bacteria will find it's way to the sand.

When I move in a couple of weeks and reset up my tanks I'm throwing out my 6 month old 300 lbs of live sand and starting over. I will be doing 1" sand bed. Reasons:

I think a thin sand bed looks better then a thick sand bed. When you see the sand level on the glass it looks unpleasent after a little while since you'll start to get colorations.

If you go deep then you have to be careful not to disturb the sand or risk possible system crashes. You also have to watch the inverts you add to make sure they do not disturb the dsb.

I'd rather gain the extra 2-3" of "display/water volume" then having it be sand. The extra water volume is more important to me so I can have more rock.

I like to keep 2+ lbs per gallon of good live rock in the tank for natural filtration. To give you an example I have 300+ lbs of live rock in my 120. I'll probably have about a ton of live rock in the 750 when that gets setup at the new house.

Carlo

 

[JerseyWendy]

Thank you, Carlo.

So now I've decided to "only" go with 1-1.5" of sand (Aragamax, the dead stuff) for aesthetics only.

Makes sense. I don't want to crash anything, just wanted some sand for the "natural" look.

---
Wendy

 

[blange3]

There are as many opinions on sand as there are grains of sand!

I have two sandbeds, one 2-3" on a 1 year plus tank and one 3-4" on a 2 year old tank.

I have 0 nitrates so they are both working. When the front gets too shabby looking , I vaccum all the way to the bottom and I scrape the coralline.

 

[eholceker]

if you use oolitic grage send you can get away with a 2-3 inch bed. I currently have a 4 inch oolitic bed in my 75 and my nitrates are basically 0. As for the rock I would do whatever looks good to you. I have around 65-75 pounds in my tank and I wouldnt add anymore. I like some room for my fish to swin if you know what I mean.

 

[Carlo]

There are as many opinions on sand as there are grains of sand!

I have two sandbeds, one 2-3" on a 1 year plus tank and one 3-4" on a 2 year old tank.

I have 0 nitrates so they are both working. When the front gets too shabby looking , I vaccum all the way to the bottom and I scrape the coralline.

I would really doubt your zero nitrates are from your sand bed. Low nitrates are usually seen because of good proportion of rock weight to gallons, from refugiums, clams and some types of corals. It helps to feed on the low side and have a low bio-load fish wise.

The 2-3 inch sand bed isn't deep enough to get the nitrification process working and the 3-4 inch bed is just at the point where you might notice a slight difference but not deep enough to be a real deep sand bed.

If you vacuum to the bottom you are disturbing the DSB and bringing oxygen into the bed and taking away any power it has to denitrify anything. Also worth noticing is that this is a BIG NO NO with an established DSB. You can't mess with them like this or you will be asking for big problems.

Also worth noticing is that if you are going for the DSB you really want to be in the 5-6 inch range using 1mm-2mm size granules. If you use bigger granules you will not get the same effect. Actually if you use large size granules (i.e crushed coral) you'll generally notice nitrates are higher then without a sand bed at all because the larger size of the granules traps detritus and the larger size causes phosphate issues as well.

I've been down the sand bed trail and plenums more times then I'd care to share trying all different size and types of granules. At one point I think I had a little more then a dozen 20Ls running to experiment on with the same bio loads, feeding schedules and maintenance done on each tank. I ran this for about 10 months to give the sand beds plenty of time to get established.

The lesson I learned from all this was to keep it simple and use only enough sand for "good looks" or for the type of critters you will have in the tank.

With the above said I do like RDSB (remote DSB) as you can make them a good 7-10 inches deep and control flow rates across them. The reason I'd advocate this is because it's out of the way and you don't see it, so you don't have the urge to clean it. Also because it's separate you can easily take it off line and never have to worry about a "crash". I used to run 2 Adsorbs. I did this so I would have the option of changing one out every 2 years while still have the other fully established RDSB working full strength while the new (redone) RDSB gets established which takes a good 3-4 months.

Carlo

PS yes there are lots of opinions about sand beds. I got tired of hearing all the different approaches and tested all different types of approaches myself to see what does and doesn't work. I take what I hear these days with "a grain of sand" since I've been there and done that.

 

[Phyl]

We keep 2-3 inches of sand in our tank. I like the look of it. Not sure it is doing me any favors, but I'm happy with it.

 

[JerseyWendy]

Yowser. Now I'm confused, sorry.

And I have a question: What's a "plenum"? (<--sp.)

---
Wendy

PS. The sand I am looking at is called "oolitic". What exactly does that mean? The specific type I'm planning on ordering is "Aragamax", sugar sized. Does that make a difference on how deep/shallow it should be? And will sand-sifting creatures appreciate and live happily in a less than 4" sandbed?

PSS. Sorry for the many questions. :-[

 

[eholceker]

oolitic is the finest grade sain available. if you have a 3 inch bed with oolitic sand it will help keep your nitrates down.

 

[Carlo]

3" really will not do much at all for you. There is still too much oxygen getting down to the bottom layers keeping it from going anerobic. If you go about 4" deep then it will be about the bottom 3/4" to 1" that will be doing the denitrification. The top 3 to 3.25" won't be doing anything but stopping the O2 from making down to the very bottom layer.

Seriously if you don't plan on going AT LEAST 4" then don't bother adding more sand then you think looks good (or that specific critters need). All you're doing is using space where you could have more water. For example if you are at a 3" sand bed in a 125 gallon tank (6'x2') you could reduce the sand bed to 1" and add 14.9 gallons of water. Having an additional 15 gallons of water volume is going to do a lot more for you then the 2" of sand. Now this would not be true if you are up in the "true" deep sand bed range of 4"+. But if you are 3 to 3.5" of sand your better off removing a bunch of sand and gaining the water volume OR adding more sand for a true deep sand bed and getting the denitrification going.

Regardless the best natural denitrification process is done by live rock.

Carlo

 

[JohnS_323]

Wow Wendy, look what you started! Poor newcomer asks an innocent question and raises a sandstorm of controversy!

For your 75 with sump and fuge, do what you think looks right. You're going to have plenty of other filtration processes taking place, so the amount of sand YOU choose shouldn't be that big of a deal.

As for rock, same thing. On the surface, 100-120lbs sounds pretty good. It's all going to depend on how dense the rock is and how tightly packed you want your "reef" to look. The standard recommendation is 1.5 to 2 lbs per gallon.