Greetings from Australia,
I have been reading your great article on the Handy Reef and am in the process of setting one up. My problem is I don't think anyone over here imports aragonite sand, I can obtain what we call coral sand, is this the same thing? and can I use it . Sizes available are 1.5 mm or 5 mm. It is possible to get " live sand " which as far as I can tell is this same coral sand that's been kept in a tank at the shop. What would you suggest I use ? I don't plan on keeping too many corals and probably mainly soft, so high calcium levels shouldn't be too crucial, is this the main reason you use CaribSea Aragonite sand? Thanks for the great article it has saved me a lot of time and expense as we were just working out how to plumb the new tank when I bought my first MFM. Hoping you will be able to help me in some way.
Regards from Down Under,
Rachel Ahonen - Jamberoo, N.S.W
Rachel,
It's good "herring" from you. Tangs for the note from down under. But, first I must ask, is it very hard walking and driving upside down
You can use the crushed coral sand even if it's not true aragonite, but for best results, make sure it is actually real aragonite still before you use it. Personally, I would not use anything but aragonite for a substrate. But seriously, it's difficult for me to say if your local brand of coral sand is now calcite or still aragonite as it originally started out when it was part of a coral reef. Both aragonite and calcite are calcium carbonate, but in different crystal form, due to weathering and age. It's kind of like an analogy that Rick Greenfield of CaribSea gave to me. Here is his response to about crystal form and dissolvability of these two forms of calcium carbonate:
Tom, Many different minerals have identical chemical formulas but wildly different properties. Example: would your wife rather have a piece of pencil lead or a diamond for her birthday? Both are carbon but with a different crystal structure. Aragonite is an orthorhombic crystal and calcite is rhobehedral. This means they have a different arrangement of atoms giving them different properties of density, solubility, hardness, etc. They also tend to incorporate different trace elements, based on what best fits into their different crystal structures. Aragonite will substitute larger atoms such as strontium. Calcite grabs magnesium and iron. Aragonite's properties are much more beneficial in a closed system. - Rick Greenfield
Rachel, you could write to CaribSea at ReefSand@aol.com and see if and where they might distribute aragonite sand in Australia. Hopefully some is close by in a store or maybe even a mail order place there???
I would Choose aragonite sand substrates for maximum functionality in your saltwater aquariums whether they are reef or fish-only. Aragonite is quite rough, angular and chipped looking in comparison to most other bagged crushed coral that is sold, which is usually a bit more rounded on the otherwise sharp edges. Wild live sand is often white calcium carbonate aragonite sand which was eroded right off the coral reef onto the ocean floor. Can you get white live sand like this there? Also, parrotfish chew chunks off the reef with the algae they eat. They chew it up and digest it, then nice aragonite sand comes out the other end! Wow, am I recommending you put a bunch of parrotfish crapp in your tank (grin)!? You can also culture any sand into live sand right in your own tank by letting it sit there long enough for the life on and in your live rock to multiply and spread to the sand. Bacteria, amphipods, copepods and worms are just some of the things that will multiply and grow from live rock and spread into the dead sand to convert it into live sand. Live on your live rock or in some live sand (used to seed your dead sand) which will not multiply in your reef tank and into your dead sand to activate it into live sand will eventually die and be absent anyway. Yes, you are going to end up missing some life forms anyway if they won't reproduce in your tank. Some people use this "high diversity argument" to argue that tank cultured live sand and live rock are not as good and biodiverse as wild collected live sand and live rock. If they are right and it really is so important to have ALL of the life that originally comes in on your live rock and sand then of couse it would follow that you would really need to change your wild collected live sand and live rock quite often as some of the life that won't multiply in captivity dies off and "must" be replaced to keep up that maximum biodiversity. This is absured! You will still get the same action form these critters that multiply in your previously dead sand as you would get from wild live sand that has been in your tank for a long time.
Dissolvability of the substrate for calcium and trace element supplementation is what becomes my deciding factor on which sand substrate to use. You would still choose aragonite live sand for the most complete functionality. Some wild live sand are very dirty though. If you can't find real aragonite bagged sand in stores, or some reasonably clean wild aragonite live sand, then you might try mail ordering either. I like CaribSea's Reef Sand (about 1.5 - 2 mm) grade aragonite sand best for use with plenums. GeoMarine works well for many also. Oolitic aragonite sand or an oolitic mix with other aragonite sands are good for tanks without plenums. If you get wild live sand try to get the coarser grade (1.5 - 4 mm) if you are going to use a plenum, but the fine grade is great for use without a plenum.
I would still use real aragonite sand for a fish-only saltwater tank too! It does three things for you. It dissolves in your tank and buffers the water, adds calcium and raises the pH. It can maintain these at ocean levels. It will normally raise the KH (alkalinity to around 8 dKH, the pH to 8.2 and the calcium level over 400 ppm. Your fish will do much better in an aquarium with pH and KH like this, rather than a lot lower like you will get when using only ordinary calcite crushed coral sand which typically raises your pH only to about 7.6 Using aragonite sand in fish-only tanks should allow you to run the tank without constantly adding buffers. The aragonite sand is your buffer. A lot of people do this and love the simplicity.
I would try to use the 1.5 mm size coral sand if you find that really is aragonite. I would be a bit skeptical and check it out first. Some people do use a mix of large and small sand grains though. Jaubert uses an average aragonite sand grain (aragonite) size of 1.5 mm also.
The use of aragonite sand is so simple, yet very often misunderstood. There are other letters on my web site and articles there too which tell you how to keep your aragonite sand working properly. Don't use buffers or kalkwasser with aragonite sand in your tank until you read these letters and articles and know what can happen if these supplements are misused. There is more aragonite info coming up in my magazine articles for this reason, so stay tuna'd! I hope this kelps!
Tanks-
Tom Miller
