"Oats" sand?

Thoughts? Anything I should be careful of...
besides DCS from collecting & hauling 90lbs of it up from 100'
Looks good once the water clears. Photos soon-come.
Andrew

50Gal in my office, has been set up for a couple of months. Local Gambusia, snails, crabs/prawns, an unidentified invasive tilapia (blue?) and a couple of yellow labs. Bubbler and creeper-vine that goes out the window, no formal filtration.





"New" outdoor 100-long/show, still clearing-up. Has been full for maybe a month with local gobies, shrimp, snails, crabs, ostracods, amphipods, cyclops etc. without sand/substrate... and very green- this is a major improvement, believe it or not.

Expected/eventual stock to continue with local stuff- bigmouth & fat sleepers, other river gobies, FW grunt/snapper, invasive Jag. cichlid (feature), black mullet, maybe a little snook (if I can find), as water will likely be well on the hard-side and I'm sick of spending money; though might throw a few coins at a couple of Oscars if I can find nice ones. Set-up's likely too bright for a clown knife (fav/dream), but nobody's importing them these days regardless.

Found a 40Gal chemical drum (15bucks well-spent, currently sourcing pipe & bulkheads) to replace this overworked & underpowered Marineland can. Passionfruit vine is germinated, to be set as nutrient-hoover as soon as it gets big enough.
A

Balcony tank's gone lovely clear since this stuff went in. The raw limestone is supposed to vacuum-up Phosphorus, which would do-in the green-water plankton pretty quick-like, as would the huge amounts of new bacterial substrate. Updates will continue under a new DIY thread... though there seems to not be much interest...
You'll all key-in the second that the Jags & Lutjanus go in, I'm sure!

A

No love...

Sorry:
I was under the impression that this "oats" was a common term in the hobby/industry, but a quick Google just now showed me that I was wrong.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halimeda
Where overpopulated, the dead leaves (CaCo3 skeleton) accumulate here and there into dunes, and if you can find such spots that are protected from waves (brittle), you can bag & drag up for... whatever.
I've got a couple of spots in front of my house at > 80' depth. This time/bag (for this tank) must have been 120Lbs. Weather came up while we were down- nearly did me in.
It's pretty stuff and makes for a highly perforated substrate that seems to fill up with wee fauna nicely.
A

Because, Red-my-sun, saltwater's a headache. Too much drama, too many things trying to grow on my glass. I'd need to buy a pickup truck to haul tubs of water around, blah blah blab. Drama.

Plus, I work in the sea and get a little bit saturated. Better to go down to the river and/or shop and find things that grab my attention with minimal fuss & muss, plus a little fun.

Plus, freshwater is just cooler. The fish are territorial and usually dig current (rather than waves), there are better plants and they have more interesting locomotive processes and/or swimming styles. Marine it's all various versions of fins ('cept eels, I guess). FW it's everything, the whole body. Knife-fish & arowana, for examples: stuff like that in the sea is either rare to come by or below 500' deep.
A