Sand and Lighting

[FishyReef]

I finally ordered my black sand (yay)!!! I plan to add it to the tank this weekend and am wondering how to adjust my lighting to compensate for the lack of reflection off the bottom of my tank? So far its been barebottom and I think the added sand (esp. black sand) will absorb a lot of the light that has been reflecting off the bottom of the tank up to now. I'm running my AIs pretty low, around 30w/25b/25rb at the brightest. Pretty sure I'll need to bump up my percentages, just not sure by how much! Thanks!

 

[FishyReef]

Okay, since this question is still lingering, I'm gonna add another one to it ;)

My first tang is scheduled to arrive tomorrow (wed). I was planning to add the sand this weekend, but do you think it will be too disruptive for a newly acclimated, sensitive fish like a tang? I'm going to add the sand through one of those hard plastic tubes and a funnel to reduce dust clouds in my tank, but I still imagine it will be disruptive for all of my tank inhabitants and corals....

 

[kevdogg]

Personally I would wait 1-2 weeks after adding the tang before doing anything major to the tank, like adding sand. But as far as cloudiness goes, it shouldnt bother anyone in the tank. The water being clear is more for us then the fish (corals I'm not sure about). they will survive just fine. I do think that the funnel is a good idea. Good Luck!

 

[Nonfamous]

FWIW, I just added sand to my sump to turn it into a fuge for pods. So as to not stir up too much dust in the water I put the sand in a bucket and put enough DI water in to wet the sand completely. Then I took a section of 1" PVC water pipe and a funnel and put the sand in. The pipe let put the sand where I wanted it and I had only minimal cloudiness. I stir up more cleaning the tank!