Is Sand Hard To Clean?

[Geoff-]

sand is awesome. poo sits on the top, easily siphoned off without disturbing the sand. uneaten food sits on the top and will get consumed.

with gravel, uneaten food falls out of reach of the fish and decomposes. when i gravel vacc'd my tank after putting an algae wafer in the amount of detritus that came out of the gravel was truly disgusting. by comparison sand is very clean, you just won't keep it spotless because you see the poo sitting on it. usually the actions of the fish kick it to the side and it sits around the edges of rocks and ornaments where it's less noticeable (i have plenty of bottom feeders).

 

[BluePhantom]

Hmmmm after reading all this im deff going with Tahitian Moon Sand!!! Lots cool and cant wait!

 

[maisy12345]

Still can`t decide what to have in my new tank,really like the look of gravel though and worried about sand clogging up my filter and making the water cloudy during water changes ,there must be some good points to gravel?

 

[Randomitity]

I do water changes weekly and I haven't had any sand in my filter after doing them the sand hardly even moved and the good thing about gravel is some fish like it while others might not

 

[Proxo]

Recently switched my 90L to sand,
the fish waste all ends up at same point of the tank (dead spot) but my corys knock it
up and the filter eventually gets most of it, so i only have to help with that every few weeks!!

So it's basically just water changes, my 55g is still gravel at the moment but i'm soon switching that to sand too.

 

[Mr Melt]

What about the floor bacteria? With sand is it any different then gravel? (eg. harder to establish or easily killed off etc)

And it is harder to root plants?

I'm intrigued by sand myself - in my next upgrade I might do it too.....

 

[maisy12345]

Gravels won with me ,am just going to have a tray of sand for my corries.