Live sand ?

[zoalover34]

im getting ready to add sand and my LR to my tank and was shopping around for live sand.. i know that it will get stuff from the rocks but i wanna get it anyways.. my question is all the places that i have found around me sells it in bags and it looks really dried out and has been sitting on the shelf for awhile.. question being wouldn't everything in there be dead from getting dry or would there still be stuff living in there? any info would be great thanks!

 

[KahluaZzZ]

Dunno may have an expiration date.
If it's 100% dry well it can be like dead live rock.
My substrate is very well alive, and if i wanted i could put some in a bag and put it on a shelf, let the stuff rot, and sell it for good $$$...
See my point.

 

[Joe Fish]

I've read in many places that it's not needed. You can save a lot of money just by adding live rock. If you know someone with an established heathly tank steal some of theirs. If money isn't a concern go to liveaquaria.com or alike sites, and order some that is guarenteed to be good.

 

[zoalover34]

i found a few places around today when i was calling that are selling 20lbs of live sand for 24.99 so its not to expensive i will only really need 2 1/2 bags for a 2" sandbed. so i figure i can get 2 bags and then 1 bag of regular sand and it should be fine.

 

[Joe Fish]

Even one bag should populate dry sand fairly quickly and nicely. I was going to take that route, but decided not to. $24.99 is not bad at all.

 

[aresgod]

get the dry, "dead" sand....spend the extra money you save on more live rock

 

[fish outa wata]

I completely agree in buying the bags of dry aragonite, so much cheaper.

 

[YahooFishKeeper]

regular sand will become populated be the bacteria with time. you dont really need to if you get live rock, but if you really want to, its certainly wont hurt anything. also... i have a question to polute your thread with. should you still rinse live sand?

 

[Joe Fish]

If you wash live sand you will wash away all the good stuff that you are paying big money for.

 

[wayne]

What good stuff. Most live sand has nothing bar a few bacteria.

 

[Joe Fish]

Are you referring to live sand being live with bacteria like arga-alive or live sand with micro crustations and all those cod things I haven't seen yet. The live sand with bacteria is far cheaper and I added one bag of that to my tank, but the rest of my sand is 1 bag of argonite reef and rest is white marine sand. Liveaquaria has live sand with worms and crustations in it, but it's like 70. Back to you question, if you wash the sand won't you wash away the bacteria?

 

[aresgod]

live sand is a big fat waste of money...all those micro crustasceans they claim to be in there...probably aren't, I cant stress enough how much of a waste it is.

 

[fish outa wata]

I don't see how you could "wash away" the bacteria. I mean if you rinsed sand in boiling water than sure. I always rinse the sand from the bags, it makes life easier. If you don't rinse it then floating particles just have to be removed from the tank. Well that's my opinion.

 

[Lorna]

There are many pros and cons for rinsing sand and substrate. "live sand" shouldn't be rinsed even with salt water.....though who would waste good salt mix to rinse sand with.....otherwise are you rinsing it with fresh water? if so you are rinsing good stuff down the drain. All that small particulate that is in the sand is beneficial to building a good working deep sand bed. If you are just adding 1-2 inches for looks alone then by all means rinse it.....if you are building a dsb then don't rinse it....you want all that fine sand in the bed.......

 

[fish outa wata]

I rinse it to get rid of the floaties beacuse they don't seem to fall.