Crushed Coral & Live Sand

I was wondering If I currently have a CC base if adding sand would have any benefit to my future reef aquarium? I no serious complaints about crushed coral but I'm beginning to think live sand looks better.


-I would love to hear what you guys think?

 

Argonite sand, is imo the best, crushed coral allows detritus to settle in between the gaps and thus raise ammonia etc, don't know too much about a mixture of substrate, but what you could do is remove half of the tanks cc and replace with sand then a few weeks later remove the other half, give it time to become live...sand does look better...

 

Just noticed, do you plan on upgradeing in the future, only everything you have seems a bit big for a 55...?

 

I believe that sand(aragonite sand that is), is a better fit for most aquarium biotopes. Oolitic and small grain sized sand is best in my opinion. I know that crushed coral is not as popular as it once was and the debate over which is better has been ongoing and will continue into the future as well.
As for the detritus collection piece of it, detritus will collect within the grains of both crushed coral as well as aragonite sand, so Stingray is partially right. Crushed coral will see the detritus collection happen faster though but eventually detritus will find its way into the lower areas of the benthic sand layers in due time as a result of advection, diffusion and throught the work of the plethora of living animals that resides in your substrate, not limited to polychaete worms, microcrustaceans and various strains of anaerobic and aerobic bacteria!
Through an aestetic point of view, I think small grain sized aragonite is more appealing and with moderate to low water flow to reduce a sand storm, across the benthic region, it is best.

 

I have aragonite that has about 20% cc size grains. I really regret not getting all fine oolite. Thinking about slowly removing it.

 

I was at my LFS the other day and they indicated that for their reef tanks they do not use any sand or coral base at all. Except for perhaps a dusting of sand for looks. I am getting ready to set up a new 90Gal and would love to hear what people think.
Currently my 55gal has a fine sand base and has worked well for over 6 years.

thanks - Mark

 

IMO sand just looks better in a reef tank. also like stated befor with CC gross stuff can get cought between the CC, pluss sand is more white then CC so i think it looks brighter.