How Much Sand?

[SkiFletch]

Well, I finally got my 45gal tank here, cleaned it up with some mild vinegar and water, rinsed it out a whole bunch of times and have it standing in place, empty . my first tasks are obviously to get some sand in there, water, and powerheads. Except I have no clue how much sand to buy, lol. The tank footprint is 36"x12". I'm getting aragonite sand, and probably going to buy some live sand to go with it to finish things off. But, how many lbs will cover it? 40? 80? more, less, inbetween, I have no clue. Your help and experience is awesome as always

 

[Fish Fingers]

Depends if you want bare bottom, a shallow sand bed or a deep sand bed. Search for these terms here or on google and find out which of them would be best to suit what you want. Then come back and tell us and we can help you out!

 

[SkiFletch]

sorry, should have mentioned that. Looking for about 3-4 inch layer of sand

 

[Navarre]

Go for 1-2 inches or 5inches+ In between will likely to cause problems.
TO operate a DSB you need the extra depth to gain an oxygen poor habitate. If you want a good nitrate producing bacteria then dont go deeper than 2 inches as they cannot populate deeper and you will get a build up of toxic gases (possibly cyanide too)

 

[SkiFletch]

Ok, so 1-2 inches in the main tank, and a remote deep sand bed in the refrigium then, but I still need to know how much to buy

 

[maestro]

be honest I have no idea, you should be able to judge it quite well looking at a bag, and saying yeah ill need 2 or something.

 

[Dragonscales]

I brought two 20 kg bags of sand for a three foot tank a few years ago and it turns out that I only needed one bag (which also had enough left over to do a two foot tank, go figure). Not sure what that is in pounds but I'm guessing about 15 kgs should do it. It always pays to buy more than you think you need though so you have spare to top up the bed in the future (especially with a saltwater tank as the aragonite sand slowly dissolves with ph fluctuations).

 

[SkiFletch]

sweet, thanks dragonscales. onlineconversion tells me thats about one 40lb bag

thats kind of what I figured, but its nice to hear someone confirm

 

[Dragonscales]

No probs mate, let us know how it works out