any difference?

any difference in sand as far as color goes?...my freind really likes the black sand. Can anybody with exprience explain the pro's and con's of using black sand? live or reg.

 

I have black in my nano and I hate it. Grain size is nowhere uniform. A lot of it is almost a powder. It is continually kicked up and covers the entire tank.

 

I think color makes no difference, its like jonjon says grain size is important. As for the live sand at the store, its bull. Its regular sand in water, was live when they packed it but most if not all the bacteria has died off. Only true live sand would be from an established tank.

 

Someone had a pic of a tank with black sand on here and looked pretty awesome. I just thought about something, black draws heat and I wonder if that would affect the water temp in any way.Maybe the bottom of the tank would be a little warmer, drawing heat heat from the lights, than with normal sand color? Have you noticed anything with this JonJon?

 

Even though live sand in a bag probably has lost all the good nitrifying bacteria you still get some live creatures with it.When I put the bagged live sand in my fuge I now have amphipods,copepods,spaghetti worms and a few more creatures I haven't identified yet so it's not a total loss on the bagged sand .

 

Heat... Naw. If it does, it is very little. I have it in my nano and am using just 2 t-5s though. Might be different with halide

 

I asked almost the same question several months back. I was told the detrius will show up more on the black sand making it look dirt. I guess if you keep it clean enough that wouldn't be a problem, I do love the look of it. It makes the fish and rocks pop.

 

black sand will also injure the sand sifting fish because the edges are much more jagged than aragonite

 

I have never used blk LS so I couldnt begin to tell you the pros or cons. I can tell you that I dont like it in my tanks, I dont mind seeing it in other peoples tank, but not mine. It doesnt look natural to me.


Luna

 

My LFS said it had mor iron in it and if you clean with magnets it sometimes attaches to the magnet and can cause scratchs if your not careful