CaribSea Arag-Alive Special Grade Reef Sand, 20-Pound

Exactly as described

Sand is white and does not blow around/ Even when my fish decide to hollow out a spot in the sand, the sand settles down quickly. I put it over some crushed coral and black agate what little I did not remove.

Gives my reef aquarium the look I was after, as well as having trace elements I need for the tank to be biologically healthy.

Arrived in cold weather, so I was worried it wouldn't be active, but I needn't have been concerned. It's a good product for innoculating a new tank with beneficial bacteria. 20 pounds turned out to be a substantial volume, about 14 inches long by 10 inches wide by 2 inches thick. I suppose the volume depends on the type of sand; large loosely packed particles of aragonite, versus small densely packed quartz.

Special Grade is sized from 1 mm to 2 mm large grains. My wavemaker would blow around the Fiji pink sized sand and reveal bald patches or high ridges. Special Grade allowed me appropriate minimal flow in y tank while not being blown around; it is still small enough to be considered 'sand'. Do not be lulled into thinking you can tolerate lower flow just for your sand's sake. Please do your research regarding appropriate Flow and relationship with choice of substrate. Most sands smaller than this has a niche use, perhaps for a very deep (over 24" deeps at the least) or a softie reef setup. Special Grade allowed me minimum flow for my mixed reef while still aesthetically looking good and meeting my fish and coral's substrate needs. I would not do a deep sand bed with it though. I have an inch and a half to two inches substratem and this does the job well.

Do not buy this unless you're a pretty in pink kind of person. I cannot attest to the quality of the product or the effectiveness on delivering the promises for water quality. What I can say is that the bags I ordered were not this beautiful black and white color that the product images display; they were frickin pink. It was a huge disappointment; be cautious in your purchasing, as these are not what Amazon is showing.

Used to start 20g tank. No issues, reasonable price.

I was a little skeptical on ordering not knowing the size or look. I'm glad I did, I need a sand that would not blow around a lot as I was adding more water movement to start raising sps. I wish it was a little whiter.

Good grain size if you want to keep fish like gobies. Live sand without any odd odors. Give your water 2-3 days to clear up. The clarifier is now added to the sand upon packaging so don't go rummaging around for a packet like I did.

Love the special grade, bad of substrate was nice and wet but only complaint was there wasn't a clarifier pack in the sand. We looked and looked and nadda! Sad they include one but it's not in the bag. I ordered some other sand from another company. Ocean direct and it had the clarifier pack in the bag but the bag was empty!? It didn't have a hole in it as the pouch had a slight pressure in it but nothing in it.. I'll be complaining to Caribsea about this and see what there response will be. Otherwise sand was clean and lots of water for the bacteria so I'm really happy with the purchase from Amazon.

I love this sand it's on sale it's the perfect size not too small that it cloudy's at the water I bought another bag

Nice live sands!

Great granular size for shell dwellers. Strong packaging for shipping and quick. Looks very natural in the aquarium.