Crushed Coral Vs. Sand

My local reef shop suggested that I use crushed coral in my tank I am setting up, everyone I've heard from here says no, use an aragonite. I'm new to this whole thing, and don't know what the drawbacks of CC are. Could someone please tell me what the pros and cons are so I don't sound like a complete idiot when I go to order aragonite. Allso, what do I use to determine the size of the sand I want? It's the only shop we have locally so I will be using him for many of my purchases. Thanks.

 

sand looks much more natural and can help maintain a tank with all the bacteria and such. however cc doesnt cloud at all when adding new water. but sand looks much more natural.

 

Some people say crushed coral will cause nitrates... But I don't think that's true in my opinion. I have used crushed coral from the start two years ago and never have had a nitrate issue...mine actually test zero. I blame the nitrates people get with crushed coral on poor maintenance and possibly to large of a bio load

 

Both work fine. Trouble with coarser substrate is the detritus it collects faster than breakdown speed, but not knowing how coarse, it may be a moot point.
Co2 in lower level of the substrate will lower the ph and slowly break down coarser medium, of course in years perspective, but we don't go for any less eh?

Now coarseness and cuc is another thing to keep in mind, then again, I cannot comment due to lack of information.

 

Crushed coral can be a nitrate factory, but only if you dont ever clean your substrate. That being said i didnt keep up with mine and just recently switched to sand. I couldnt be happier! I will never go back to crushed coral

 

I went from CC to a med. grain sand and can say that I love it compared to the CC much easier on the eyes and eas actually cheeper where im at and It allowed me to have more sand bearing creatures. on a side note it also has the tendency to hurt the skin of same fish if they rub aginst it to hard.

 

the only pro of crushed coral imo is that it doesnt cloud the tank as easy, my sand is so fine that once i move one rock or even put my hand in the tank it clouds up for like 3 hours

 

I'd actually say crushed coral looks more natural. I haven't seen many reefs with perfect sugar sand. I wouldn't call CC a "nitrate factory", however, finer sand is better for denitrification and allows a wider range of livestock to be kept. True sugar sand is actually kind of a PITA though, I'm with rc_mcwaters3 and really like medium grain sand. It's a great compromise in many ways.

 

in most reefs the sand is extremely fine, it may have a few rough patches, but for the most part sand is far more realistic than uniformly sized grains of gravel made from dead coral. that is something you never find large patches of on the ocean floor. that is because all the sand on the ocean floor has been broken down over thousands of years so it is extremely fine. and if someone did dump some crushed coral in the mix im sure it would be sand in a matter of time. sorry for ranting. haha

 

definitely go with sand. CC is a pain to clean, sand is just plain easier. also some fish aren't compatible with CC. the finer the better, as far as sand goes.