Live Sand from store versus Beach

[mling]

I have been advised to add Live sand to my 4 year old DSB. I know you can get them in bags from Pet's Mart,etc. I also know Marine Scene sells them by the pound I believe. Is the MS per pound better since I always wonder how "fresh" the bag ones are.

 

Has anyone used sand from a clean beach ? i.e. not Ocean City in the summer time

I am thinking of deserted Bethany Beach in the winter. On the other hand would the cold water imply that there is no life in the live sand ?

[dcreefer]

Quality live sand comes from the sea floor away from beaches. The sand on the beach is where the ocean pushes all of its scum, nastiness & debris. I would not recommend using beach sand from anywhere on an established aquarium. If you ask around on the boards, I'm sure people would give you sand from their tanks.

[Origami]

Someone recently mentioned that one of the LFS' here had some really good live sand (including worms and other benthic life in it) that they carry routinely. This is the stuff that I'd be looking for whether it came from another hobbyist or from the store. The stuff in bags is alright because it's got bacteria. But the other stuff brings beneficial diversity to your sandbed that the bagged stuff just doesn't have.

[mling]

The only LFS that I have seen live sand is Marine Scene. Is there another in VA ?

[nbgen12]

anyone able to answer this one? I am also interested to know

[zygote2k]

MS is the only store in the area that regularly has fresh gulf live sand.

Live sand in the bag is just sand with bottled bacteria added- not the same stuff.

Live sand from a members' tank is a mixed bag- possibilities of diseases/parasites/cooties and the reduced diversity typically found in a captive system.

[wade]

Do not use beach sand from this area - it is sand (silicone dioxide) - eg, crystals of hard, indissolvable substrate with no pores and no space for critters to live or gaseous exchange. It will compact and turn nasty looking in the tank. It is not araganite like we use in our tanks.

 

And to mirror the above - beaches are not as clean as you think. Most are exposed continuously to oily/fatty/surfactants that will still be in the sand. And while you can wash it fairly thoroughly, it won't do anything positive for your tank. I've seen only 2 noteworthy tanks using silica sand and one used a large dump bucket to create waves on the surface of the sand.

[sen5241b]

The best sand is aragonite and you will little on the coast of the middle Atlantic states.

[zygote2k]

Contrary to what Wade says about local beach sand, I've seen a tank that used sand from that big retention pond just over the Bay Bridge and this is the tank that had documented polyp bail out in Elegance coral back in the day.

The sand at the beach just at the surge zone is full of pods and other critters. I used this sand to start the tanks in the Marine Bio lab at college and had outstanding results.

If you see an oil slick, don't put the sand in your tank, otherwise it's perfectly good to use.

[zygote2k]

The best sand is aragonite and you will little on the coast of the middle Atlantic states.

If you're looking to seed an old sand bed with more life, any fresh ocean sand will be fine as long as it's clean.

[wade]

I'd also caution you against putting temperate organisms in your tank. They are not adapted to living with corals. While unlikely to be a real problem, there are tons of bivalve eating critters in the zones where shell debris accumulates (typically, just below the low tide line on external facing beaches) as well as juvenile crabs and others that may mature readily in the tank. We used to do a good bit of looking at sands under the microscope in grad school and while they do have life, silica sand is not high in it and diversity is also poor. The best locations are sub-tidal where water movement is higher, but not causing shifting.

 

If you are curious about the state of beaches nearby, EPA and your State have that information. The states monitor for fecal coliforms (not a good indicator to be sure, but one that can identify heavily impacted sites that may have more problems than you'd want... nutrients being one). What they don't monitor is industrial and runoff contaminants. This area is heavily farmed, so you will likely find traces of many different pesticides at certain times of the year as well. Probably not enough to cause direct harm to your tank, but better safe than sorry IMO.