The Puffer Forum

to be completely honest, i dont know if i have ever seen a pool shop...

Then go with the play sand but plan on rinsing, rinsing, rinsing!

ill just use my spare 5g bucket, change the water every..... 12 hours i guess

Rinse the sand before you put it in the tank. It's a pita, but well worth it.
You can get a cheap, white, low thread count (200 or so) pillow case, use that for a "strainer" to rinse the dust out.

you live in maryland? go to the seaside and use that sand? its cheaper plus its live sand so will help cycle your tank

could do that, but id be afraid of bringing in bad stuff too.

You could get sand from there and then boil it to kill off any crap

Not at that salinity. That's different bacteria than low brackish.

xrayjeeper83 wrote:could do that, but id be afraid of bringing in bad stuff too.

You could get sand from there and then boil it to kill off any crap

People in the UK dont even pay for salt, some go to the beach fill their cans with seawater take it home and pour it straight in their reef tank. Apparently Corals love it more than synthetic salt water and so grow better and exhibit more colours. One guy i know is running a 650L Coral Reef Tank on seawater he collects from the beach

Walrus Head wrote:

xrayjeeper83 wrote:could do that, but id be afraid of bringing in bad stuff too.

You could get sand from there and then boil it to kill off any crap

People in the UK dont even pay for salt, some go to the beach fill their cans with seawater take it home and pour it straight in their reef tank. Apparently Corals love it more than synthetic salt water and so grow better and exhibit more colours. One guy i know is running a 650L Coral Reef Tank on seawater he collects from the beach

Well I dont know about that Walrus Head. I've heard people mixing salt water in UK just like we do here. Even tho they live by the beach.

Not saying you cant do it, just that you run the risk of dumping some bacteria into your tank

xrayjeeper83 wrote:Not saying you cant do it, just that you run the risk of dumping some bacteria into your tank

Right, and something about the 4 seasons they bring different SG or something.

sevenyearnight wrote:Not at that salinity. That's different bacteria than low brackish.

+1 the SG difference alone would give you an ammonia bloom.

I would not keep an F-8 myself without an aragonite substrate. Keeping the alkalinity up without it is much more difficult, and alkalinity is important to F-8s or really any low-end BW tank.

RTR would you do aragonite only? I already have pool sand in the tank, could I mix the two and be ok? If so how much would you say to put in a 20L

How stable is your pH/KH?