Chirstmas Tank Failure

[Danh]

Hey ya.

Ive just come back after christmas and found one of my tanks dead. So ive gutted it ( jewel rekord 70 ) out, and just finished cleaning it.
But now i thought it would be a good excuse to redecorated the tank and stock it with something different.

Ive decided that i want to go back to using sand, but last time i didnt have much of a good experiance with that - i used play sand and developed dark black patches in the sand and it never really settled down.
So i was wondering if i was to go back to sand what can i do to stop these black patches occuring again and the sand/silt not settling.

Any help will be greatly accepted.

Dan

 

[sandfire]

I have always used sand in the aquarium the trick is to turn it over every week, I just run my fingers through it. In my planted aquariums I use heating cables as well, they create convection currents and you get a small amount of water movement drawn through it, but you still have to turn it over otherwise it can compact and the lack of oxygen means you get anaerobic conditions, evident by bubbles coming up from the substraight, these are highly toxic as they are hydrogen sulphate and stink (eggy)!

My Tips:

1. Turn the sand over regularly.
2. Vacuum the surface weekly when doing water changes.
3. Don’t make the sand to deep an inch is deep enough.
4. Use heating cables as they create convection currents.

5. Most of all: Be extremely careful where you buy your sand I learnt the hard way and lost a lot of fish because I used 'play pit' sand, it was 10 times cheaper and although it was still silver sand it also contain toxins that leeched into the water and killed all the fish (£100's worth) . I only buy sand specifically for the aquarium trade now.

 

[chr15_8]

I have always used sand in the aquarium the trick is to turn it over every week, I just run my fingers through it. In my planted aquariums I use heating cables as well, they create convection currents and you get a small amount of water movement drawn through it, but you still have to turn it over otherwise it can compact and the lack of oxygen means you get anaerobic conditions, evident by bubbles coming up from the substraight, these are highly toxic as they are hydrogen sulphate and stink (eggy)!

My Tips:

1. Turn the sand over regularly.
2. Vacuum the surface weekly when doing water changes.
3. Don’t make the sand to deep an inch is deep enough.
4. Use heating cables as they create convection currents.

5. Most of all: Be extremely careful where you buy your sand I learnt the hard way and lost a lot of fish because I used 'play pit' sand, it was 10 times cheaper and although it was still silver sand it also contain toxins that leeched into the water and killed all the fish (£100's worth) . I only buy sand specifically for the aquarium trade now.

totaly agree with fisrt paragraph and point 1 and 2.
my cichlid tanks been running for well over 2 months now. i used argos playsand, the snad is at least 2 inches deep.


as said turn the sand over every week when doing water changes and vacum the surface lightly.

wash the sand out well. i put about 1/3 of a bag from argos into a bucket. i then washed the sna dout with the water over flowing the bucket. this got rid of the very small grains of sand. i got cloudy water for about 1-2 hours and was crystel clear.

oh the playsand in argos is £2.50 a bag. 3 bags done my 4ft x 15 inch base tank. lots of people on here use it.

chris

 

[sandfire]

oh the playsand in argos is £2.50 a bag. 3 bags done my 4ft x 15 inch base tank. lots of people on here use it.

chris

If argos playsand works go for it, DO NOT use Tesco playsand its lethal stuff (to fish anyway).

Plus hope that Argos don't use the same supplier as Tesco's!

 

[chr15_8]

you could of got a dodgy bag? was it kept inside or outside?

there alot of people here that use argos. there also a few the use b&q

chris

 

[sandfire]

you could of got a dodgy bag? was it kept inside or outside?

there alot of people here that use argos. there also a few the use b&q

chris

I bought 6 bags and they were inside the store and were bone dry. I think some of the cheaper playpit sand is actually a man made substitute for the natural. I have since read it can contain, any number of chemicals and dyes to keep the colour and texture.

has anyone else used Tesco's own brand before?

 

[DarkEntity]

I used Argos play sand and it was a nightmare. Ive since went and spend some good cash on Caribsea Moonsand (black) which is far far nicer and has worked a lot better.

 

[Danh]

Thanks guys, ive gone and done it properly now with aquatic sand from maidenhead this afternoon so its now clearing ready to begin cycling.

Thanks again for all your help it was great but i didnt fancy running a risk 2nd time round.

 

[chr15_8]

Thanks guys, ive gone and done it properly now with aquatic sand from maidenhead this afternoon so its now clearing ready to begin cycling.

Thanks again for all your help it was great but i didnt fancy running a risk 2nd time round.

make sure you keep up the maintenance as in the 2nd post if not it will happen again

 

[Waspy]

i have removed my sand... i bought it from a good tropical fish store....

In my first tank i used small stones and would only need to do a 20% water change every 2-3 weeks.. fish were great clown loachs, read tailed shark
everything was happy in there, all grew to a good size, started a new tank and used sand!

every week dirty, every week egg smelling sand.. i did everything, turned the sand over, washed it out, made the layer thinner, removed the worse
sections and put in fresh new sand...

but yet everytime.. eggy grey/black patches... even some of the man made items in there were loosing their colour and going white!
then the fish were becoming ill.. and to death in some cases.

i really like the look of the sand, the catfish liked it for feeding, also shows the colours of the fish great, but really i have gone back to small stones.


one good thing came from the lesson.. rosie tetras.. wow what a hardy fish.. no matter what the water conditions.. still banging out eggs