Crushed Coral or Sand/Aragonite?

I am with the Wiz (and the minority) in this regard, but I will split hairs and say it depends on your setup. If you have a shallow tank and a lot of current like I do, you may consider this...

Here is my recent experience...

My last tank had the fine aragonite sand that everybody here likes. It looked nice and generally worked ok... but there were parts that caked/packed and turned solid under rocks and where the clean up crew didn't hang out.

On a tank I just setup a week ago, I again bought the popular aragonite fine reef sand.

This tank has more current (and more random) going through it. It was quickly obvious that the fine stuff was not going to work.

I shopped around and found some 3mm coral reef sand from the Philippines. This stuff is quite a bit bigger than the fine stuff but much, much smaller than what is typically called crushed coral which I believe is in the 7 - 8mm range.

It works with my arrangement very well- it has moved, but does not storm up in the water column like the fine stuff did. I think there will be good gas exchange so to speak in it and I don't think it pack/cake either. On the minus side, I may have lost some of the buffering potential that the aragonite sand has, but I am not sure - either way, it is a good trade off for me.

Here is a recent pic:

I also cut 3 - 4" sections of pvc pipe to support the rocks off the sand a bit.

Maintenance and good clean up crews is key whatever you get. Just wanted to give you another view and some factors to think about.

FWIW

 

You can also look at this site..you can't purchase from it but it does give you the info on that brand, then you can look for a retailer of it if you like it.

I like the black ;D

http://www.livesand.com/

 

Ok, so I have officially read one too many horror stories surrounding CC...I will change to sand. Thanks to all the threads in these forums, I am convinced that CC is a stupid thing for newb like me to use in a 20g nano.

So for the sand....DSB or just a regular 1-3" bed? I don't have a fuge, and probably won't have one anytime in the near future. Do have a 10g sump tho!

Thanks again!

 

I would do about 2". That will give you plenty for the cleanup crew to play with and any fish you buy that digs will be happy too.