"Hammer" wrote in message oups.com...
By the way the man at the fish store told me play sand would
work IF you had the right sand. He told me that their is
only one brand you can use - Southland - which is only available
on the East coast. Well living in Washington state that isn't much help to me.

I live in the Chicago area and got the play sand in Home Depot.
It was labeled as tropical coral sand. It was purified/sanitized, dried
and packed into the bag. This is the sand removed from the ocean.
There is nothing special in the "southland" sand making it more
suitable for a reef tank than any other fine grade sand on the market.
Read dr Shimek articles about Deep Sand Beds on www.reefcentral.com

It will look like mud and this is good thing. Until you will add heavy
live biological load to the tank in the form of live rock, fish, corals
you will not have proper bacteria activity and the sand particles
will stay loose. This is bacteria which makes sand particles stick
together and sand in mature reef tank will not be so muddy...

BTW - some people pay very big bucks for actual mud to be put
into their reef tanks... It is called "Miracle Mud" and it is great
for bentic life inhabiting bottom of your reef tank... Look it up on
www.google.com if you do not believe me :-)