black beauty or black sand

[mattbeau]

what is better for a single dwarf puffer in a six gallon US tank with the works.

Black Beauty or real black sand.

Black beauty is installed already and is cycling in the tank

Real black sand was 20 dollars at LFS enough to fill my 20 galon with 1 inch



should i drop the black beauty or hold on to it and see what happen

DP's like sand,

Black beauty is used normally for sand blasing, cointans iron minerals and can be a little sharp. ( i learned all this after the fact of course). easier to clean, harder to clog a filter

Sand can harden up, mess up your foilter, harder to plant with and may be harder to cleen

any goods or bads for both would be great, ill be making a decision tommarow afternoon.

Thank you

 

[Erised]

If the black beauty can be sharp, I recommend you change it to sand. Dwarf puffers like sleeping on the bottom of the tank, and being scaleless fish they easily get scratched and wounded. The wound can get infected and lead to death of the puffer.

 

[SirMinion]

Lose the slag.

Black beauty is a by-product of the iron industy and as such has all sorts of potentialy toxic trace elements.
It also contains fragments of jagged glass that are created in the process of extracting the ferrous material.

 

[mattbeau]

GLASS!!!!
I didnt know that there was glass in there

currently have coryadora in there cycling it, they are going back in to the community..... dont want them to hurt there noses.


glad i asked

wish i had asked earlier


back to LFS

 

[Dorkhedeos]

black beauty is just iron slag. if you want black sand, get some tahitian moon sand

 

[mattbeau]

The tahitian moon sand is what i saw at the lfs for $20, I just cleened out all the old black beauty and moved the coryadoras back to the community tank, where they can stay.

i'll be going back to the lfs for that sand.

Thank you.

 

[Opcn]

Ditch the sand, Personally I'd recomed that you get either a burrowing tankmate or MTS, although many will disagree with me.

 

[mattbeau]

Too late,I got the sand. amd I definately like it more then the black beauty, its very very soft and looks great, I made sure to rince it very well this time, rinced untill there was no more floating stuff on top and removed alot of the very fine particles


I noticed that the sand seems to hold its temeperature better then the water. interesting.

now i have to wait for everything to cycle, currently using Ralphs brand ammonia, which has no dies or purfumes.


BTW what is an MTS (snail?)

also this is only a 6 gallon heasvily planted though

if its a burrowing tankmate it would have to be small and unnoticable (for its own good)

 

[Erised]

MTS = Malaysian Trumpet Snail

Reason why they are not recommended is because their shell is very hard. Puffers will try to eat any snail, including them, and chances of them breaking their teeth are high. Do Not use them ... really bad advice from Opcn there

Reason why he mentioned it is because the sand needs to be stirred up once in a while to make sure no toxic pockets form underneath it. Then again, in a tank that small, you'll already slightly stirr up the sand when adding water, so no worries there I think


Like you said, I do not recommend a burrowing tank mate either. First of all, none are small enough for a 6G, second, they Will be found and Will be nipped. I had banjo catfish in with my South American Puffers (yes, the most docile ones of them all) and when digging the banjos up and checking them after a week, they had definate nips in their top fins. So a no to burrowing tank mates as well

Opcn, not ment mean, but have you even kept dwarf puffers yourself? If so, have you tried this ... and how did it work for you?

 

[mattbeau]

thanks Erised,

I'm just trying to do everything right this time since i pretty much did everything wrong last time. I have even been keeping an eye out at the LFS at the puffers they got in last week, they are nice and plump and active. I had asked the person working there at the time if i could reserve one but he wasnt sure and his superviser wasnt there at the time so i will check again tommarow.

alas my puffer tamk may take longer than expected to cycle again.

doing fishless cycle and i used too much ammonia, still at the 8 range even after 50 % water change.