Sand/Nitrates ?

Is the sugar sand not aragonite as well?

Any sand that comes from the ocean should be aragonite.

If it's play sand or something, that might be your problem...

 

Aragonite is a carbonite mineral basically its the name of one of the 2 common forms of calcium crytals that make up CaCO3, i.e. calcium carbonate. Sugar-sand would denote grain size generally in the .03mm-1.0mm. So yes they are one in the same. Play sand is a Silica based sand which some people have had problems with when using, i.e. diatom blooms and others have had no problems with.

As far having nitrate problems with sand, the only thing that comes to mind is the sand getting moved around once established as a denitrifying base and/or is there not enough sand to allow that base to develop. In all my tanks I've generally went with a 4"-6" sand bed and never had a major nitrate problems, unless I went in there and started moving things around which would cause a spike.

 

You have any sand sifting creatures in said tank?

 

I was thinking along the lines of sand sifting starfish, jaw fish, something that's really going to wipe out the bacteria/organisms if you have a shallow sand bed.

 

Is there live rock in the 60gal and how long has it been up and running? The reason I am asking because of Liverock dieback. It is very common and water changes are all you can do, but I would recommend Boyd's Chemi Pure and[/b] even if its long astablished. Chemi pure has never failed for me in saltwater or fresh water.
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What type of lighting do you have and how long is it on for? I've done my own experiments and for some reason I have seen that running intense lights provided by MH (in this case) for less that 6 hours/day I would have nitrates creep up. My 350 has no fuge or biopellt reactor, I used caribsea Fiji pink live sand when I set it up and run 3 400 watt MH for 7 hrs/day my nitrates are always under 1 I believe the lighting plays a part with the denitrifying bacteria. My sand bed is 1"-3" deep depending on location and I have a diamond goby and a blue spot jawfish that are constantly digging and sifting through the sand. Do you see any bubbles in the sand where it is against the glass? Again this is just my own experience with it. You can see by my other threads with the pics that my tank is extremely healthy.