pandora32
Well-known member
Also a good fyi. When it comes to the sand, or aragonate. You will want to keep it 1" or less, OR, for a deep sand bed (dsb), 3" or more. In my display i messed up and put crushed coral in it instead of sand or aragonite. The crushed coral is too course and collects alot of waste. Ive had hair algae growing across my tank on the substrate ever since. I really need to take it out and replace it someday. More on a personal note, this is what im planning on doing anyways. Im going to get some, for me alot...lol, of the caribsea fiji pink about an inch deep for my display. In my sump i currently have a dsb mixture of aragonite, sugar white sand, crushed coral, and a bit of broken up shell. It measures about 5" deep. I am thinking of SLOWLY replacing some of my sumps dsb with more aragonite.The benefit of aragonite over plain sand is the buffering ability. Wont work so well with a shallow bed, but a deep bed of aragonite will break down to and release the calcium and buffer your tank. Maybe not as good as a calcium reactor, but to me, any buffering i can get without buying a bunch of equipment or spending large amounts of money on, is a + to me! My sump is setup as follows~1-water drains through a 200 micron filter sock, cleaned every couple days2-protien skimmer is in the same chamber as the sock is, so the water goes through the skimmer before going into the fuge area3-watet enters fuge chamber, filled as mentioned above4-water leaving the fuge drains down through a sponge to catch any large objects that made it through5-waterthe enters into the return chamber, which is where i have @ 30 pounds of live rock as well as a pump to pump for going to my media reactor, which drains back into the return section and it alldies goes back up to the display.Hopefully this isnt confusing, makes since in my head...lol
