http://www.fishchannel.com/setups/saltwater/about-live-sand.aspx<<The live component of the sand includes aerobic and anaerobic bacteria, forams, annelid worms, crustaceans (primarily isopods and amphipods) and, occasionally, tiny brittle stars. The grain size varies from very fine to chunky. I prefer a medium grade in which the grains are about the same size or slightly larger than a pinhead. I have found that the very fine grades may remain suspended because of water pumps, which can result in clogged external filters and destroyed impellers. On the other hand, large grades are more difficult for our clean-up crew to keep stirred up (more on this later). >>
Taking a look at some other groups like ours, the conventional wisdom is to ensure the date on the bag is very recent, like within a month (some say the shelf live is effectively 6 months). Another person checked the Nitrates and Phosphates on a bag that they purchased and both were "really high".
There are several suggestions of purchasing high quality seeded 'grunge' from here
http://www.garf.org/index.shtml . My assumption is that it would be fresh, but have never used their product. Use it to seed dry sand that would be cheaper than 'live sand'.
Has anyone purchased or used GARF's offerings before?
Other suggestions are just use live rock dry sand and a pound or two of 'live wet sand' that a LFS has in a tank.
If you are up to experimenting to give feedback to the group, I would really like to know if the GARF stuff is worth the purchase....
Just my $.02 while having coffee (my kind daughter made) and surfing the net
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