Carib Sea Arag-Alive Substrate Special Grade Reef Sand, 10 lb.

Although it is clearly not pink, I find this substrate to be very attractive. I like that it contains beneficial bacteria, so when I added fish to it right away encountered no ammonia or nitrite spikes; I did not rinse the sand so the bacteria could survive. I use dechlorinated municipal tap water in my aquariums, and this substrate buffered both the carbonate hardness as well as the general hardness from soft to medium-hard and raised my neutral/7 pH to about 8 (which is great for African Cichlids). I am keeping shell dwellers (neolamprologus multifasciatis / multis) in a 20 long tank and needed about 30 pounds so ended up buying two bags. The sand is fine enough for them to dig and move around (which is one of their characteristic behaviors). I find Caribsea to be a great company and highly recommend this product.

I love this stuff, it's been my favorite for over a decade - great color, ideal grain size, not either dust or fine gravel. There are a couple things to remember when you order. First, you might need more weight compared with dry-shipped substate, because some is water weight, not a lot, you'd never noticed in a little tank, but it may add up to an extra bag in a large tank that uses several. Second, you probably don't want to wash it, because it defeats the purpose of it being shipped wet with salt water, ready to host beneficial bacteria, if you're going to soak it with fresh water to rinse it. No idea how long it would take to balance out again. It claims to contain live bacteria - how much is still alive after a long time in a bag is anyone's guess, but it's certainly much more ready to host than dry sand. If you're using it for cichlids, this doesn't apply, wash the hell out of it, they dig a lot, and you'll want all the fine stuff gone. What I do is put an Aquaclear filter on the tank, fill it with just the sponges, and every time the tank is starting to clear at all, I stir the sand gently, so the fine stuff either settles to the bottom or floats into the water. After a few days, I can stir it without it really clouding the water, and that way, I know that for the life of the tank, I can gently disturb the sand without fear of clouding it for days. If you don't mind changing it a couple times a day, you can speed this along by packing filter floss on top of the sponge for a finer filtration layer.

In all, I got four 20lb bags of the Fiji Pink sand and it’s been great thus far. This is for starting my 65g saltwater tank and it’s created about 4” of sand along the bottom glass ... and it’s just so pretty to look at thru the glass. I will say that this sand is incredibly cloudy, but it’s completely worthwhile to be patient with it. I have a canister filter and it’s done a great job in cleaning the tank within 2 days and the cloudiness is gone ... make sure you clean the filter! Have added live rock to the tank as well. With the sand and rocks and saltwater, it’s been in cycle for a week with no fish ... took a water sample to my local aquarist store to test the water, and it’s just about perfect on all levels and will def prevent ‘new tank syndrome’. I was green lighted to put a clown fish in, but I’ll give the tank another week to cycle before putting in any fish. If anything, be patient with this sand, no rinsing is needed ... and while I don’t know it yet, I do believe my tank, corals, fish and other tiny crustaceans will benefit from it.

This is the best sand for reefers who enjoy reefing. (Pun intended)(o.O) This soft substrate is hardy for rocks and rockscapes but soft for my watchman gobie and pistol shrimp, my LPs corals all enjoy the soft substrate when on a rock. Conch snail and Nassarius snails can dig and burrow very well. I used this to kick start my tank nitr cycle on week 2 and my results have been stellar! Overall great tank look with quality feel when scaping. Always check water parameters! Make sure to QT fish(76day fallow) to avoid hitchhikers and free swimmers(ich) and check for parasites on Corals to not transfer to DT. Think Global. Shop Local. S4LT.TV

This was the best price. It ships from pet smart or pet co. And got Amazon price. Came fastish. Supper happy with the product. Makes my fish tank look so much better. When put it in the water became clear really fast too, didn’t stay foggy long.

Water cleared with in 2 - 5 hours max. I purchased this Sand for my 36 tank bc I read my dragon fish would do better with sand and brackish water. Since the install He’s extremely happy, I’ve never seen him so active. he loves sifting throughout the sand . My only issue is one of the two bag arrived poped & no max clear liquid … I found that strange but the other bags I purchased were fine & the guy at my fish store said it should be ok to use …Idk so I listened to him . I mixed the dry bag with 3 other bags for my 36 gal . I believe the sand itself contains live beneficial bacteria & does not contain salt so to create the preferred brackish environment This brand also sells pre mixed salt water that I buy from my local marine store .

great sand!! thank you. no need to rinse with rodi water. cloudy water will go away fast if and only if floss is used. both of the nano tank water cleared in about one day. the cloudy water is really crushed sand. the sand is crushed during packaging and shipping. no need for reef carbon, purigen and phosguard when cycling new aquarium. some people use dry sand and dry rocks to start a new saltwater aquarium. please do test the aquarium water for nitrites, nitrates and ammonia for two months. the dry rock, dry sand method will take 60 days for the aquarium to cycle. then add filter media and cleanup crew ie. snails to the saltwater tank. make sure ammonia is zero before adding fish and cleanup crew. some hobbyists use real saltwater, live rocks and live sand. add add benificial bacteria with fritz turbo start 900 will help either way. both our tanks cycled fast with live rocks, live sand and real ocean water. livestock was added a few days later. and only after testing the aquarium water to ensure the aquariums was safe for fishes and a cleanup crew. both pairs of black snowflake extreme clownfish love it in their nano tanks. we used caribsea fiji pink sand and live rocks with plenty of coralline in the two nano tanks. coralline are the purple algae on the live rocks. coralline algae comes in many colors such as pink and purple. aquarium lights such as kessil are great for live rocks and coral, however, only ambient room lights are currently used to light both aquariums. the purple coralline on the live rocks will get lighter in color and the purple and pink colors in all likelyhood will fade without aquarium lights, however, the helpful and needed bacteria will still be alive. never leave the aquarium lights on for extended periods of time. do not keep the aquarium lights on for too long a period of time. in addition, overfeeding will cause the aquarium water to be nutrient rich for green hair algae, algae and cynobacteria better known as red slime algae. all saltwater aquariums have ugly stages. some hobbyists use a uv sterilizer to help with algae and ich. patience is needed for this hobby. water tests and at least three months are needed before adding easy corals. never introduce too many fishes to an aquarium. always do weekly or biweekly water changes. always use rodi water to topoff the evaporated water in the aquarium. never use tap water for aquarium water evaporation. always go slow. and read and post questions in saltwater aquarium forums.

Looks beautiful in my tank. The color and texture are very natural, and it instantly improved the appearance of my aquarium. Clean, consistent grain size and easy to work with. Very happy with this purchase.

Wet sand, definitely live. I didn’t even have to use the whole bag for my 16g tank. Solid product

el producto llego bien empacado y la arena es un poco fina pero se ve bien

Looks really great in the tank can't wait to get fish in there

Me agradó mucho su consistencia y calidad sobre todo que ya trae su cultivo de bacterias y su compuesto para disipar la turbidez en el agua, buen producto.

Great sand for my tropical tank,great for the tank and fish and easy to put in, water goes extremely cloudy when using ,its fine and does clear,obviously if you do it without fish,its more manageable. If you have fish in the tank already slowly pour a small amount and wait for it to clear by using carbon filter bags and a strong flowing water pump to clear ,cleaning the filter 2/3 times and leave the remaining cloudiness to clear. I use a pet drinking submissive pump to create a bit of a current so this is the pump you can use to clear excess debris, so that it doesn't damage your standard drip filter. I included images of the pump and the cloudiness of the fishbowl without anything in to show cloudiness after 1/2clears with the pump ,id say i had to do this 3/4 times on the bowl as its a small area and difficult not to disturb, pump must be vertical in a fish bowl when clearing this sand or it disturbs too much. But for a tank horizontal is right and should take less time to clear,i had no injuries and no deaths to fish when introduced, brilliant product.