What's the ratio of Live sand to Dead sand

[Jazzy171]

I'm in the process of setting up my first reef tank (150 gallon AGA). I will be using a DSB of about 4", made up of about 300lbs of Southdown. I was just wondering, how much live sand do I need to seed this bed to get it started.<BR> Also, how can you tell if the quality of the "live" sand" is any good. <BR>How do I know I'm not just buying "wet" sand. Any help on this subject would be greatly appreciated. Thanks

[Triatik]

Good Morning,

I just started a 90g with 180 lbs of caribsea and added live sand (figi) from Premium Aquatics. I heard you should have the live stuff one inch deep. Soon after adding the live sand, I could see critters tunneling down into the dead sand. Now after two months, I see many tracks into the dead sand.

I hope this helps....

Homer

[FLASH]

You really don't know how "live" the sand is, just buy from a reputable dealer. Of course, the best live sand still has 'critters' in it, such as worms, and pods. But usually you need to add them separately, as they don't survive long shipping times, or the pounding they get during shipping.
As for ratio, you can get by with only a little live sand, if you are willing to wait for the bacteria, and sand-dwellers to reproduce to populate the entire bed. Keep feeding your bed, or let it cycle, and grow normally, and add above ground creatures much later, and slowly.
Just a ballpark, for you, is to add 20 lbs of live sand, and then a detritivore package from Inland Aquatics, or our sponsor, IPSF, and let the sandbed mature over a month or 2, and then add your corals and fish one at a time, 3-4 weeks apart.

[tdwyatt]

I agree with the addition of live sand from ispf or other good reputable source, prolly will only need around 10 to 20 lbs of live sand to start your system. In the past, the best cource of live sand was either starting your system with dry sand (dead sand sounds so detrimental...) and allowing live rock to cure in the new tank to seed the sand bed, or to borrow a cup of sand from as many other aquarists as you can beg some from and seed your sand bed after it settles. Take a cup of dry sand or two to them to swap for it (2 for one should be fair, afterall, their system will repopulate that new sand in a day...) I personally prefer the second method, as it will introduce many different sources of benthic infauna as well as beneficial bacteria to your system. The wider the diversity of the creatures in your sand bed, the better you system (and more quickly) will mature to handle both carbon and nitrogen cycles. Once the ammonia drops off and you see nitITE fall off, it will be time to start monitoring your nitRATE AND add your first detrivore critters, because this is when the algal cycles will start up. There is no ideal ratio of live to dry sand, regardless of how much dry sand you have (up to a point, I am sure) as long as you add at least a cup into a crater in the sand bedabout every 2 sq feet, there will be a colony that will colonize the rest of the tank. Go slow, look for evidence of the critters on the glass side of the substrate, and don't add creatures later on that will consume and sift your sand to the detrement of these creatures (see Sam Gambrell's or Ron Shimeck's or Rob Toonen's articles on sand bed infauna). You can get all the sifting you need from a sea cuke (the "cat turd" type) and the normal detrivores you get in a detrivore kit (but leave out the hermits, just my opinion)

[ 09-09-2001: Message edited by: tdwyatt ]