All of the individual nooks and crannies of those broken pieces attract bacteria. So the finer your grain of sand, the more room you have for a biological filter. All of the individual faces of each grain of sand are places for bacteria to colonize. Aquarium sands with plenty of surface area create the perfect home for those biologically beneficial bacteria to grow. The other benefits you get are icing on the cake.īiological filtration in a saltwater aquarium is performed by the bacteria growing on the live rock and in the live sand in your aquarium. That’s the first and foremost function of the substrate. Use aquarium sands to create the look you want. You can find other ways to control the nitrogen in your tank. You can (and should) read the section on denitrification and think, “Wow – what a great benefit of keeping a deep sand bed!” But if you’re not crazy about that big, nasty-looking sand bed, don’t do it. I encourage you to consider the aesthetics of aquarium sand as equal or more important than the other functions. (After all, creating a beautiful reef tank is what the hobby is all about) The right choice of sand can help you achieve the look you’re going for. It’s the perfect complement to your reef tank aquascaping. And that includes aquarium sands. One of the most basic functions of the substrate is to provide an aesthetic look and feel to a saltwater aquarium. I’m not sure if you’re like me, but I feel this pressure to know what everything in my aquarium does. If you want a thriving, healthy mini-ecosystem, you turn to aquarium sands. It’s more than following a traditional pattern (even commercial tanks add sand). And that’s one of the reasons hobbyists spend so much time picking and choosing their substrates. But with smooth glass in your tank, you’re missing out on the advantages of aquarium sands. Some people choose to keep an aquarium with a bare bottom. And your corals benefit from that boost of calcium. Either way, you can add the perfect touch of “tropical” to your reef tank when you go with this look. Some of the commercially available pink aquarium sands come from Fiji, though. When forams die, they leave their skeletons behind and provide the sand with its pinkish hue.įrom a travel and vacation perspective, I think of Bermuda as the most famous place to find pink sand beaches. Forams are tiny, single-celled creatures that create hard, red skeletons. The white side of the equation comes from traditional aragonite, while the red comes from the shells of forams. The pink hue found in pink aquarium sand is actually a combination of white and red. You just need to trade off the fact that the particles come in on the small side, making cleaning a bit of a chore. And there’s no doubt it’ll create a dramatic backdrop for your fish and invertebrates. It’s rich in nutrients and ideal for promoting plant growth.
If you’re planning to grow plants in your reef tank, black aquarium sand is the way to go. (Lava – and obsidian – are delicate and prone to fracturing) The color’s natural, with no dyes or coatings to wash off into your tank water. Black sand forms when hot lava comes in contact with cold ocean water and breaks apart. They’re formed as a result of volcanic activity, and lava is rich in obsidian. (We’ll go into the benefits below) Black Sandīlack sand sometimes gets marketed under the name “Tahitian Moon Sand.” This is because Tahiti is known for its black sand beaches.
But don’t worry: that extra color (even if it’s primarily brown…) actually does GOOD things for the health of your tank. So once your aquarium gets up and running, your gravel won’t remain pure white. Over time, the white aquarium sand gets covered in a biological film (i.e., bacteria) and becomes clogged with dirt and detritus. And the fresher your aquarium sand? The cleaner the look. However, the brightest color shows when placed against a darker background. Out of the bag, crushed coral has an appealing white coloration. As mentioned in the section above, this substrate comes from the (bleached) skeletons of dead corals (sounds bleak, doesn’t it?). If you are looking for a brighter look than the “traditional” aquarium sand, you can achieve a more brilliant, whiter color with crushed coral. For a natural, functional, and practical substrate, “traditional” aquarium sand is a straightforward choice.
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