The Marine Substrate

There is always the choice to go bare bottom in your marine aquarium but I just do not think that would look good. Having your aquarium looking good is a pre-requisite for me and hence I will not be speaking about bare-bottom systems.

When choosing a substrate for your aquarium I recommend something that will help buffer your system. This means to keep the PH of the water stable. You want a calcium carbonate based sand if at all possible.

There are two things other things you need to decide when selecting a substrate. One is grain size the other is substrate depth. When choosing a grain size you do not want something so fine that it stays suspended in your water column all the time leading to cloudy water. I used Aragamax Select by caribsea for my substrate. For the depth you want either less than 1" or greater than 4". If you are not planning a deep sand bed for denitrification purposes go with less than 1". It will save you money (you need less sand) and also saves you from headaches as a depth of 1" to 4" just does not help with denitrification.

I would warn against using a silica based sand as it could lead to brown diatom blooms in your aquarium as diatoms feed off the silica.