Ch4Rlies New 2.5 Feet Tank Journal

[Ch4rlie]

Be careful when mixing sands. Pay attention to the grain size of any sand to go into a mix. If you mix a fine and a courser sand what you end up with is a tighly packed substrate. This make it more difficult for plants to root.

 
Ah, of course!
 
Am so glad I asked for opinions, I actually did not think of this and it seems very obvious now.
 
That probably saved me a ton of trouble if I went ahead and mixed the senegal sand, which is larger and coarser than the sansibar sand therefore ending up with a concrete like locking of substrate.
 
 

I've just been to MA at York to see if I could get some more of my unipac sand to top up around my plants. I'm not sure if it helps any but the small bags of unipac are just over £4 at the moment - less than I expected it to be for MA (knowing they can be pricey)

 
Excellent, will have to pop into my local M.A and see if they're selling these Unipac bags cheaper as you say. Thanks

 

[Akasha72]

I've just looked to see what size the bag is that I got but it doesn't say - it weighs the same as maybe 2 bags of sugar and each bag was £4.49. I got two bags for topping up even though I'll probably only use one!
 
They had the large bags and I'm kicking myself now as I should have checked the price on them and then I could have passed that on too. For a 2 and a half foot tank I'd say you'd need maybe 5 of these small bags so one large might be cheaper

 

[daizeUK]

Excellent, will have to pop into my local M.A and see if they're selling these Unipac bags cheaper as you say. Thanks

 
Charlie if you're considering Unipac then check out Aquaessentials - they do the larger bags which you'd probably need and more cost effective.
 
The Unipac sands tend to be different grain sizes and some of them are larger than you'd think.  I use Unipac Maui Fine and the grains are much, much bigger than playsand or equivalent.  I really like this sort of grain sand and I think it works well in a planted tank.  But then if you're considering buying a new bag of substrate then how about a proper planting substrate?  If I weren't going for a soil substrate in my next rescape then ADA Amazonia would have been my first choice.  A bit more expensive but apparently very good for plants, although you need to allow some time for ammonia leaching.  Not a problem if you're fishless cycling anyway.

 

[Ch4rlie]

Thanks Daize, in my 3 foot tank I have Unipac Senegal Sand, it is coarser and about 1mm in size.

Does not feel particularly sharp or rough, would habrusous cories (salt & pepper corydoras) be ok either on that or on these specialist plant substrates if I was to use either one on this new tank?

And aquaessential site is pretty good, I have used that before, good tip, will check them out for substrates.

 

[daizeUK]

I forgot about the cories, never kept them so I wasn't thinking! I'll keep my mouth shut because I have no idea about them. I was thinking about maybe a sand cap over a nutritious substrate but would the cories burrow in and make a mess

 

[Ch4rlie]

I forgot about the cories, never kept them so I wasn't thinking! I'll keep my mouth shut because I have no idea about them. I was thinking about maybe a sand cap over a nutritious substrate but would the cories burrow in and make a mess

 

 
Don't worry. That was my original thinking, putting nutrasoil on bottom layer and sand on top, like a dirt tank sort of set up. But like you, worried if cories bury into the substrate and end up in this soil either making a mess or making themselves ill on this plant specialist soil.....

 

[TallTree01]

I've not had cories on plant soil but I'd think so long as there's a reasonable thickness of sand atop the soil you won't have much issues.

 

[daizeUK]

I'd just be worried about the sand falling through if the grains of the planting substrate are much larger.  You'd end up with the larger particles on top and it would look ugly.
 
Soil would work but you're not supposed to have a thick layer of sand (max 1 cm) to avoid anaerobic bacterial activity so the cories could make a mud pie out of it.

 

[Ch4rlie]

Think finally found the solution

 
After going to several LFS's around and seeing bag after bag of sand, gravel etc was getting fed up of goign around in circles.
 
Thought, oh I give up, and ended up getting a 10kg bag of orange sansibar sand and hope for the best mixing it with the red and grey.
 
The results -
 

 
This is MUCH more along the line of what we want, a fine sand that looks more natural and perfect for cories

 
Since all these sands are the same brand and type, just different colours, pretty certain mixing these will be just like one large bag of whichever colour.
 
Not going to go with any specialist plant substrate underneath this sand, will be just about 2 inches of sand all round which is perfect for plants and cories as well as the assassin snails that will eventually go into this tank.
 
Whew, what a saga that was and shows the lengths we go to create the best look and the best set up we can get for out stocking

 

[Akasha72]

it's looks okay - difficult to tell for sure until you get it in the tank and all decorated etc. The main thing is - you and yours like it. Doesn't matter what we think

 

[LyraGuppi]

I like it!

 

[Ch4rlie]

it's looks okay - difficult to tell for sure until you get it in the tank and all decorated etc. The main thing is - you and yours like it. Doesn't matter what we think

 
 
It'll be good .............. I hope!
 
 
 

I like it!

 
 
Me too

 

[Ch4rlie]

Sorry, time for a quick update, did a bit of work over the weekend and not got round to uploading a couple of pictures for this journal

 
First, I put one of the pieces of wood that we decided to use in a container with water and a powerhead to circulate the water, have already changed the water once. It was a nice shade of brown and had lots of pieces of wood and dirt in the water, exactly why I do this, to get rid of some of the debris off the wood

 

 
And the substrate saga is finally over

 
Finally after mixing various amounts of each type of sand to achive the natural look that was happy with and then spent quite a bit of time rinsing out the sand until was satisfied is clean for the tank, also cleaned the tank out as well.
 
The final thing was to add the sand substrate to the tank, wanted a depth of around 2 inches all round as will be planting this tank, and will be adding my assassin snails to this tank to help with the substrate too.
 
Pic shows the colour of sand, tank glass is a bit mucky with some sand on it and water is slightly cloudy, hence it shows as more orange than really is


 
 
 
Oh, and also put on 3 coats of satin varnish on the DIY stand top to seal the wood

 

[Akasha72]

looking good so far. I've soaked my wood in the same manner with every piece I've got but I've always used boiling water at first. I found this helped it to sink and the added bonus was it sterilized it too. I've never put a power head in so that's a good tip

 

[NickAu]

 
Oh, and also put on 3 coats of satin varnish on the DIY stand top to seal the wood

Opps I forgot that bit.