Is It Ok To Put Sand In A Tropical Fish Tank

[Mr Melt]

When I do a water change my sand stirs about a bit, with some resting on my plant leaves....

It eventually dissapates within 10 minutes; I haven't had any complaints from the fish so I assume its fine.........

 

[eaglesaquarium]

If you increase the circulation of the tank, the waste shouldn't really stay on the sand at all. Have you considered adding a powerhead or something like that?


I have only one small Penguin 200 running on my 55 gallon, and I noticed that when I do a water change, any detritus in the tank will collect on the bottom - which is easily syphoned up, but it isn't on the bottom when the filter is running. If I had the second filter (which is coming) I think that it would come up more quickly, and wouldn't show up at all. The same would be true of a powerhead. The powerhead would push around the waste, so that it could be picked up by the filter.

 

[gginnj]

I remember once I had a tank with sand, and some of the fish were totally different with. I had a horseface loach that would just dive right under and "swim" through the sand and come up somewhere else. Also had some small horseshoe crabs that would bury themselves in it - never had much luck with them when I had gravel, but they were pretty hardy with the sand. The only problem I had was when I tried to setup this small eco system. I had a 30 gallon tall tank, kept it about 1/3 full of water with sand, a couple fish, had a small turtle, a couple tree frogs, and yes, you read this right, I had a couple zebra finches. The birds would sit on the branches that crossed over the water. It actually was really cool. But the problem was the bird food (seeds) would fall into the water, and start to decay under the sand, and the smell was terrible. I tried to find fish that would eat seeds but it did work out. But for a few months, had a really cool looking tank.

 

[claire2011]

I found the easiest way is to put the cleaned sand in your empty tank, then place a dinner plate in the middle of it, pour your water slowly on the dinner plate so the water doesn't disrupt the sand so much. You should have a nearly clear tank of water when you're finished.

thankyou 4 repley

 

[Louiseness]

If you increase the circulation of the tank, the waste shouldn't really stay on the sand at all. Have you considered adding a powerhead or something like that?

Good point. I was running some mystery old filter that I got with the tank (Ebay ) but added another recently as I wasn't convinced it was turning over enough water. I did notice when I cleaned the tank last that there was much less 'stuff' on the sand (infact, the bloody sand keeps going into drifts as the water pushes it about now!).

 

[claire2011]

I remember once I had a tank with sand, and some of the fish were totally different with. I had a horseface loach that would just dive right under and "swim" through the sand and come up somewhere else. Also had some small horseshoe crabs that would bury themselves in it - never had much luck with them when I had gravel, but they were pretty hardy with the sand. The only problem I had was when I tried to setup this small eco system. I had a 30 gallon tall tank, kept it about 1/3 full of water with sand, a couple fish, had a small turtle, a couple tree frogs, and yes, you read this right, I had a couple zebra finches. The birds would sit on the branches that crossed over the water. It actually was really cool. But the problem was the bird food (seeds) would fall into the water, and start to decay under the sand, and the smell was terrible. I tried to find fish that would eat seeds but it did work out. But for a few months, had a really cool looking tank.

thankyou 4 reply, carnt wait to change it once i order sand next week, gravel gets so dirty and its horrible