Coral Sand?

[Kingumar]

Coral sand/GRAVEL

I bought some coral sand for my tank and the guy told me 2 rinse before use and it also says on the bag "Rinse before Use"..

Now, i took like 2lb and separated it and started to rinse it.. and it took me 20 mins of rinsing and still the water comes out cloudy.

What do the mean by rinse? keep rinsing till the water is clear? or just 1se or twice because if its "rinse till water is clear" then i think ill spend like 2 hrs pr 20lb..

My back hurts already help lol

[Jadinop]

That's the number one reason that I recomend the "live" sand over the dry sand. No rinsing required, just put it in the tank and go. The minimal price difference more than makes up for the back breaking work of rinsing sand as you are finding out.

The sand does not need to be rinsed super clean. You want to leave some of the fines (really small sand particles) in the sandbed to help house more bacteria anyway. A few rinses so the water isn't super muddy looking is all you need to do, I don't think it's possible to ever get the sand perfectly clean. The tank will cloud up when filled the first time but that will settle out in a few days.

[Kingumar]

i am srry i worded it wrong, i meant Gravel, its called coral gravel and its like little shells and etc. Its aka Crushed coral by some..

Is it a good idea to have coral gravel as bottom layer and live sand on top if it?

[Jadinop]

It's better to have sand only, I wouldn't put the cc in the tank at all. Crushed coral traps too much detritus and is difficult to clean. Sand houses much more beneficial bacteria than crushed coral does, it all comes down to surface area.

[crvz]

I would recommend sand as well, the crushed coral can often cause more trouble than it's worth. But in contrast to Jadinop, I actually much prefer the drysand. Livesand is packaged for who knows how long and you can't really know what's in that bag. I've never experienced a benefit of using it to create a sandbed in a tank. A good, dry, aragonite based substrate has always worked well for me. It does require a rinse, but not really until the water runs clear. Of course that wouldnt hurt anything, but it's probably a hopeless endeavor.