HCA: Hermit Crab Association

After reading the link provided by Dramatic Hermiexx in the thread about play sand, I wanted to know a bit more about oolitic sand."An oolite has a shell of concentric layers of calcium carbonate that precipitated around a nucleus or central core. The nucleus is usually a tiny brine shrimp fecal pellet or a mineral fragment. Oolites form in shallow, wave-agitated water, rolling along the lake bottom and gradually accumulating more and more layers."Now, to me, that sounds like something a hermit crab would go for. Kinda like M&M's candy! Anyone tried it in their tats?

I know quite a few people who use this sand. I believe the brand they use is Caribsea and it is a very soft sand as well. It is also an expensive sand, but it can be used an re-used many times over and baking it does not seem to discolor it at all and keeps the softness. I have thought about trying it but I just don't have the extra cash to do it right now.

Yes, quite pricey, I can't see filling a whole big tank with it. I wouldn't want to mix it, either, because that would make it impossible to re-use. (I guess you'd sift, wash, bake - how often?) It looks like an ideal substrate, though. I'd heard of people using aragonite but was unaware of this particular grade.

I'm thinking of getting a bag and trying it, well a few years from now. It sounds like a very nice substrate. A 25lb bag runs just shy of an astronomical $40 around here. Add that to the fact that my tat is 75G, I'm 15, and that I mix sand and coco fiber together (wouldn't be able to reuse it), that's mega money. I plan on still using play sand since I have yet to have an issue with it (except it gets a little packed unless mixed with some coco fiber in my experience).

I use Caribsea oolitic, and I really like it, but I absolutely prefer to layer it with ee to keep it from getting too wet. It doesn't absorb water well, and even if you put it in dry, the crabs will do their best to get it wet. But it is soft and beautiful, and I like that a lot. Here is a picture of it in the tank. Pretty! I get mine at Petsmart for around $25 for 30 pounds. I usually put 60 - 90 pounds into the tank (which sounds like a lot but really isn't for a 75 gallon) and maybe 4 or 5 bricks of ee, plus some old substrate.One word of caution - the little white grains of sugar sand against dark ee kind of look like little mites. So if you are the kind of the crabber that stares at grains of sand to make sure they aren't moving (LOL - I definitely used to do this), then you might want to go with a larger or darker-grained sand.OT, but I put grains of uncooked rice in my sea salt to keep it from clumping, and one of those grains is especially worm-like (and panic-inducing) in the salt-water pool. I should probably have separate "tips" for people with mite/worm/other parasite phobias!