Fiji mud vs Miracle mud

[jlt232000]

Just got a cpr hob refuge and was thinking of puting mud instead of sand? My lfs sells both the fiji $59.99 vs the mirical mud $99.00. They are both the same size it looks like, quantity wise. What do think?

[mdrc]

dont know if the fiji stuff is any good but i use the miracle mud and love it

[psimitry]

Originally posted by mdrc
dont know if the fiji stuff is any good but i use the miracle mud and love it

I too, have had miracle mud and liked it.

(Btw - that is an incredible anemone as your avatar).

[Peter Eichler]

I think you should save you money...

[hyperfocal]

Originally posted by Peter Eichler
I think you should save you money...

I agree. Buy a new frag and go out to dinner instead.

[Kenmx10]

Go with the sand and seed it with a cup of live sand. Muds not gonna really do anything unless you want to grow plants. I dont see the benefit.

[hawkfishman]

i use m.m. in my 220 reef ref. and am very happy, i read in several places about it yellowing the water, but it's never happened 2 me?

[dcombs44]

The Miracle Mud is full of quartz, which is full of silicates, which diatoms feed on. I have battled diatoms ever since building my current tank that has MM in the fuge. The MM is exhausted at this point (about 3 years), so I'm finally not having to clean my glass every single day. MM also claims to help cure HLLE and brighten fish. I will say that my fish have always been bright and no tang has ever shown signs of HLLE, but I'd like to think that's more because of good husbandry than MM.

Also, $99 is way over priced. Check online, and you'll find it for almost half that. (Depending on size)

I'm switching to sand on my new build.

EDIT: Premium Aquatics sells the 10 lb. bag for $30 and the 10 lb bag for $60.

[bubbly]

I checked out a bunch of the miracle mud threads a while back and the consensus was that it was basically the same thing as garden dirt.

I think the benefits would come from having small animals living in it eating detritus, but I would think that you would need live mud to seed it with.

One of the benefits of using sand is that you can use aragonite, so that when the critters that live in it (plus bacteria) eat they produce acid, and if you have a DSB then it will contribute to the calcium and alkalinity levels in the tank. I have a 6 gallon nano with an aragonite dsb in it, I don't dose at all in it but it's getting covered in coralline, and every time I test the parameters they are perfect (lps / softie tank, though)

I would be interested to hear from people who have kept both mud fuges and sand fuges to hear what kind of differences they find.

[jlt232000]

Good info from all. Looks like some like and love mm. Will I went out and bought fiji mud. Its taking a while to settle.

[chimmike]

I gathered from this thread that it was better not to waste the money on mm or fiji mud.......................but good luck to you.

seems like another one of those magic bean products to me.

[luther1200]

I used Carib-Sea mineral mud, and I haven't had any problems. My tank actually improved considerably after adding it.

[Kenmx10]

Originally posted by luther1200
I used Carib-Sea mineral mud, and I haven't had any problems. My tank actually improved considerably after adding it.

How did it improve?

[Rouselb]

MM is just another substrate that can be used. It works ( I used it for years ). But there are many other substrates that will also work as mentioned above. You can use regular oolite sand or muds. With any substrate it will finally become exhausted at some point and new to be replaced. Muds in general become exhausted before sands. I personally believe its due to the thickness of the substrate. Muds are typically only 1-2" deep, and sand beds are usually 2-5" deep. For what its worth, i have removed my MM fuge and my DSB fuge and not just use a skimmer with great results. I would say save your money and get one great skimmer.