New Setup - What's In The Sand?

[OzarksReef]

Hi - I set up a 55-gallon aquarium this weekend ... preparing for my first reef project. After reading a lot of posts in this forum and looking all over for some inexpensive aragonite, I decided to go with "play" sand for the substrate. I bought a couple bags of "Gulf Coast White Beach Sand" at Wally World and set the tank up and went to bed.

Got up the next morning and there were numerous burrows in the sand. I'm just wondering if there are some live "critters" in there or if this is a natural "settling" in the substrate. Here's a couple of pics:





Thanks for taking a look - I'm looking forward to adding some rock in the next few days!

[fears]

it's gas
what type of gas I'm not sure, in my tank it showed up serveral days latter and I thought it was co2. If it's a new tank setup then maybe something leching from the sand. I have not seen it cause any prob in my tank but please take that with a grain of salt. I'm a newbie too

[yoshikuni]

i highly doubt that you have any live critters that came with your "play sand" since its not even LS.

its most definitely air or gas of some sort, maybe air trapped when u first put the sand in, and when the sand settled, the air is concentrated or pressured into pockets.

[rickzter]

It's air. Somewhere I read it's not good to have trapped air in the sand, dont ask why cuz I forgot. You should loosen it up as it looks rather ugly.

[OzarksReef]

OK - I stirred the sand and got all the ugly burrows and pockets out. I'm hoping it was just pockets of air and general settling - not some gas that might cause problems. My lights and filter arrive later this week - I hope to add some live rock this weekend (can't wait)! Thanks...