live sand or dried sand

[wa_lanz]

currently having a tank with many corals in it. im gonna add a refugium tank and the uncle say he will be adding macro algae and DSB...

some questions for the gurus out there:

1)for the DSB do i need to request for live sand as i heard that dried sand would affect the water parameters.. dont want anything to happen to my corals... any advise?

2)and also for macro algae part, think he's gonna give me mixed type... is it good to have a mix all purely caulerpa?

3)anything else that i may need to consider adding a refugium?

THANKS in advance.

[terryansimon]

dried sand affecting parameters? maybe affecting means it will not affect the parameters as the sand takes time to be saturated with infauna responsible for making the sandbed active. (=

I'm using dried sand, and now the refugium is working perfectly fine. unless you have a truckload of money on live sand, I advice you to give dry sand a shot.

to speed it up, you may want to seed it with a cup of sand from another reefer's tank. (=

[blueheaven]

Yes, so called "dry" sand is good enough. As bro terryansimon said, you can seed it by getting some sand from matured tanks.

As for the macroalgae, I am still distrustful of caulerpa as it tends to crash suddenly or go asex and pollute your system. Its toxins are also suspected to decrease coral growth too and they grow so fast, you need to prine them frequently. I would recommend chaeto or ulva instead but for cases like me who do not use macroalgae for nutrient export, try growing the slower growing ones.

You might also want to read my article on sandbeds first to get an overview on the dynamics

[pegasus1010]

can dis seeding be done on sandbed in main tank?

[blueheaven]

Yes it can. But be sure to know the tank conditions of the other party as you do not want to seed your tank with sand that already have diatoms forming a biomat on the surface

[wa_lanz]

ok... anyone wanna give me a cup of matured sand? not now but rather 1 - 2 weeks time? anyway blueheaven.. i do not really understand the last part u said about macro algae... so ulva and chaeto grow fast or slow???

[blueheaven]

both are slow growers and chaces of them polluting your tank is low

[wa_lanz]

blueheaven

but are they as good as caulerpa in removing nitrate and phosphates?

[terryansimon]

caulerpa removes nitrates faster due to it's perversely fast growth rate. my bunch of caulerpa just crashed, because I didn't prune it. *mutters*

ulva on the other hand, has been said to remove phosphate as well. (=

[wa_lanz]

how come it will crash when u don prune it?

then how? ur tank crash as well?

[blueheaven]

if you do not prune them often, they tend to mature and go asex

Or they might be too cramp and get stressed up and die

When they crash, your tank's most likely going to suffer as well

[blueheaven]

if you do not prune them often, they tend to mature and go asex

Or they might be too cramp and get stressed up and die

When they crash, your tank's most likely going to suffer as well

[wa_lanz]

how to tell whether matured anotz and wats asex?? sorry for being a complete idiot...

[root]

hmmm can someone advise on the indication tt the Caulerpa has turned asexual?