Substrate selection for 240g main tank

[ceastman]

I am getting ready to do the initial cycle of my tank, I was thinking of going with 3 inches of the following: I like the middle of road size of grains so I don't have a dust storm, but I could be talked into something else.

Special Grade - 1-2mm CaribSea Arag-Alive Special Grade Reef Sand -

Or should I get a couple of different bags of:

• FL Crushed Coral - 3-5.5mm
• Special Grade - 1-2mm
• Bahamas Oolite 0.25-1mm

my tank is 84" length, 23.5" width and 27" high: I have three Tunze turbelle stream 6100.10 and two 1" returns for water movement.

[victoly]

Comes down to aesthetics and inhabitants. If your inhabitants require/prefer finer sand (wrasses, jawfish, etc) go fine®. Lots of people love the special grade, and most sand requiring inhabitants do just fine with it.

[jestep]

Fan of special grade. It's small but doesn't get blasted. The oolite will be blasted everywhere.

The dry special grade is way cheaper than the arag alive. If you do get dry you will need to rinse it a ridiculous amount though.

[ceastman]

well with all the rain we have gotten lately, I could put it in a big bucket in the backyard....and that would rinse it out...

[ceastman]

Who sells the dry special grade? and the dry would need to be seeded thou correct?

[jestep]

Who sells the dry special grade? and the dry would need to be seeded thou correct?

I think the dome and maybe aquatek have it, best just call around. It comes in 50# bags. It will take some time to build up bacteria but will not cause a cycle since there's nothing to die off. Basically if you put cycled rock in the tank, you shouldn't see any ammonia spike even with dry sand.

Here's what mine looked like after almost an hour of rinsing.

[FarmerTy]

Special reef grade sand is what I settled with. Perfect balance of size particles, not too light to get blown around and not too big that it'll still allow sand burrowing animals to make use of it.

I bought four 50lb bags from Petsmart, shipped, for under $120 during their free shipping special. Perfect for about a 2" sandbed in my new 215g once I set it up. I haven't gotten to try it yet but just looking at the grain size, I am already happy with the decision.

[FarmerTy]

Just be careful as their packaging changed a few years back so there are special reef grade bags that have a mix of sizes (fine to coarse) versus the pretty homogenous size bags that I bought more recently.

[Sascha D.]

I've had a fullt display of crushed coral, one of sugar sand, and one of medium grain sand. I agree with Victoly on the grain size. You can't have wrasses or jawfish with crushed coral so if you are thinking of those than a sand grain is the best choice. I have had nothing but problems with sugar sand, so I would not recommend it. I currently have medium grain sand and it's a lot less headache. Once I mixed crushed coral and coarse grain sand but it didn't turn out well.

[Timfish]

My favorite is Carib Sea's Fiji Pink but like mentioned above it's mostly personal preference.

[Robb in Austin]

I've seen theTropic Eden fine grain stuff getting great reviews. Supposedly very clean and despite the small size doesn't float around.

I've thought about using it in my next setup.

That said, I've used the sea floor special grade and been happy with it.