High Tide Aquatics

What’s Your Favorite Sand?

Schmitty

Schmitty

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My tank is just about ready to start up again after getting all the black cloves out along with everything else. So I have a rock scape raring to go but what sand do you recommend? Definitely gonna have some gobies and at least one sand sifter
 
I have used three types of sand: CaribSea Special Grade, Reef Flakes, and Aquaforest Bio Sand. The AF is by far my favorite. It holds up better to high flow than the CaribSea despite being smaller grain, does not grow algae unlike the larger Reef Flakes, and is gleaming white in color. Here is a thread I wrote along with pictures:

www.reef2reef.com

Aquaforest Bio Sand --- Super Bright White Sand!

I started my 8 month old tank with CaribSea Special Grade but got tired of rearranging the sand every morning due to flow form my two MP40s. I switched to Tropic Eden Reef Flakes which both looked nice initially and did not move due to the larger grain size. Unfortunately, after about six...
www.reef2reef.com www.reef2reef.com

I have had the sand in my tank for two years now and the sand still looks wonderful.
 
I would have voted for Carib sea special grade which I have, but that Aquaforest sand looks very nice.

I assume nothing weird coming through ICP?

Only downside I can see is that if you add live sand for biodiversity which I do on a 6 months basis it might look odd with this clean looking sand.
 
Alexander1312 said:
I would have voted for Carib sea special grade which I have, but that Aquaforest sand looks very nice.

I assume nothing weird coming through ICP?

Only downside I can see is that if you add live sand for biodiversity which I do on a 6 months basis it might look odd with this clean looking sand.
Click to expand...
I have had the sand in my tank for 20 months now and haven’t noticed anything odd in the ICP test. I agree that live sand (from the ocean) can look fantastic. I spent a lot of time looking at threads and videos on the Tampa Bay Saltwater live sand and almost went that route since some of the videos looked amazing.
 
Slingfox said:
I have used three types of sand: CaribSea Special Grade, Reef Flakes, and Aquaforest Bio Sand. The AF is by far my favorite. It holds up better to high flow than the CaribSea despite being smaller grain, does not grow algae unlike the larger Reef Flakes, and is gleaming white in color. Here is a thread I wrote along with pictures:

www.reef2reef.com

Aquaforest Bio Sand --- Super Bright White Sand!

I started my 8 month old tank with CaribSea Special Grade but got tired of rearranging the sand every morning due to flow form my two MP40s. I switched to Tropic Eden Reef Flakes which both looked nice initially and did not move due to the larger grain size. Unfortunately, after about six...
www.reef2reef.com www.reef2reef.com

I have had the sand in my tank for two years now and the sand still looks wonderful.
Click to expand...
This is interesting, I hadn't heard of this sand much. I remember the initial drive for special grade was from BRS to allow for extra flow in higher energy tanks, but like Alex and Slingfox said it definitely isn't the best looking as far as brightness. And with gobies you're going to see tons of remodeling no matter what @Schmitty .

I saw TLF carries a Western Florida coarse sand which personally has been the brightest I've felt and seen in person (see this a lot in Marco Island). There's "live" and dry: https://www.saltwateraquarium.com/l...es/?searchid=0&search_query=Two+little+fishes

If you try this I'd really like to know what you think since seeing it side by side would be great to notice how much light it reflects.
 
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