Live sand/regular sand

[TheReefster99]

Hello everyone I could use some more advise if anyone is up for it.I am positive I want to go with live sand but do not have the money to go 100% live sand.My question is how much live sand and how much non live sand will I need to be sucessful? I have a 46 gallon Bow.Also when i get them both should i mix the live with the non alive or should i put non alive on the bottom and the live on the top layer?When I buy the non alive sand do i have to buy it from a pet shop or can it come from somewhere else cheaper??Thanks for your time once again!

[brody98]

When I did mine I put the dead sand on the bottom and put the live on top. I have a 75 and I used 25 lbs of live on the top, but that was all I could afford at the time, it worked for me though I left all the stirring to the crabs and other critters. As far as getting it local or online you will have some die off either way and cause a mini tank cycle but it will be a lot less if you get it local, unfortunately it will usually be more expensive. If you don’t have anything in the tank now you could get away with less live sand, it will populate the rest of the sand in time especially if you have live rock in the tank also. Hope this helps a little

[KillBill75]

I used Southdown play sand 2.5" worth with out any live sand. My tank is a 40 gallon with 40 lbs. of live rock and 10 lbs. of Aragacrete that I made,It's been 5 monthes and all is well, My sand is full of life! And all my fish and corals are thriving! If you do 2" of dead sand and a half inch of live this should really kick start the tank.

[ClownMan]

From what I've learned, and what worked best for me, was to use the regular (more coarse) sand as the bottom layer substrate and then put the live sand on top of that. I've found that it's not good to mix them up becuase usually they are different textures. Put the more granualar as the bottom layer and the smaller (usually live sand) as the top layer.

This really worked well when I added the Goby and when I had my Yellow-headed Jaw fish's (which I plan on getting more). They seemed to love the fact that it was layered in that fashion with the more coarse substrated underneath.

[TheReefster99]

I was in a pet shop last night and there was live sand in a bag so i asked if it was cured or had to be cured and the guy told me that live sand does not have to be cured that i could just put it right in my tank. Does this sound right to anyone because I hurd somewhere that it had to be cured like the rock.Which theory is true? thanks!

[brody98]

You can put it right in the tank if you have a real light bio load and hardy critters. It will cause a mini tank cycle, nothing major though.