Next Step

[Lithril]

Okies, I've just about finished building the stand for my tank (I think the damn thing could hold up my car let alone the tank - hooray for over-engineering 8) ). The filter is arriving soon so I'll probably get the substrate and some rocks etc this weekend. After asking around in the forum I'm going to go for sand as I should get reasonable plant growth as well.

Next question is which type of sand to get and where to get it from. The lfs is bound to be expensive so that leaves the local builders shop?? What sort of sand should I get, if I get it from B&Q I will probably be limited to sharp sand or silver sand???

 

[CFC]

The best sand to use if you dont want to spend the money on river sand from the lfs is childrens playpit sand, its easily available from most hardware or DIY stores and is nice and cheap, a 25 kg bag is sufficient to cover the base of a 30g tank with a 2" deep bed of sand.

Moved this to tropical chit chat where it will get more traffic, not many come in here with the oddballs

 

[Lithril]

Sorry its been a long day, been here since before 10 and I'm still at work now. I posted it in the oddball as I meant to add that I'm going to be keeping puffers in it and also wanted to make sure that sand is fine with them really need sleep now Oh well only another 2 hours to go.

You mentioned river sand at the lfs, how much more expensive is it, my credit card doesn't mind being stretched a bit more if its going to help the fish and plants. I intend to stock the tank heavily in plants, will I still need to worry about dead zones???

 

[Lateral Line]

I've used silver sand, but found it compacts too much. Never had any trouble with swimming pool filter sand, from pool shops of many of the big DIY centres.

 

[CFC]

It all depends on the size of the tank really, for small tanks id go with the river sand but since it is usually £1 a kilo tanks over 20 gallon start to become a little too expensive, there isnt any difference that i know of but the river sand looks better IMO.
I held off using sand for a long time for two reasons, one was the formentioned problem of dead spots and the other was that id heard that sand didnt make a good substrate for plants.
After a lot of umming and arring i decided to swap the substrate in one of my tanks (a 30g) over to sand and see how it went, i added some malaysian trumpet snails to keep the sand turned over and placed all the plants in pots to prevent them from being dug up and after 3 months everything was still fine. I have now changed 3 of my 5 tanks to sand and will be doing the other two in due course.

The only drawback i have found with sand is that it gets dirty quicker than gravel, especialy with larger fish, and needs to be cleaned more frequently. With a gravel substrate i only vacumed once a month (sometimes longer) but with the sand im having to do it once a week and sometimes twice.

 

[Lateral Line]

>>> with sand is that it gets dirty quicker

It shows the dirt quicker. With gravel, that delightful material is packing down between the grains unseen - which would you rather have?

 

[CFC]

Strangely enough whenever i vacumed i actually found the gravel to be suprisingly clean, i put it down to the healthy populations of MTS's in the tanks which i presume ate the waste matter as they crawled through the substrate. Since changing the tanks to sand i lost the large ammount of the snails (i saved a handful for each tank but most got thrown out with the substrate ) so i guess there isnt a big enough population yet in the new substrates to clean up the mess yet.

 

[Lithril]

The tanks 3'x1'x'1 so I'm not sure how much substrate that equates to. I normally just keep adding it till it looks about right

Only problem with keeping snails to turn the sand is that I want puffers and I don't think they'll last long

Keeping plants in pots, will that not restrict growth etc, also I thought the roots grew into the sand and helped prevent dead spots and remove waste??? So do you buy your plants in pots or pot them once you've bought them?

 

[CFC]

That size tank is roughly around 30 gallons so about 25 kg of sand will be enough.
Since the snails spend the vast majority of the time buried in the substrate i would think they would be ok, it would only be the odd snail that ventured out in daylight that would get chomped, they breed quick enough to cope with some losses and the puffers we help to keep the snails from over populating the tank.
I usually buy my plants unpotted and then pot them myself filling the space in the pots with gravel, you can get tiny plant pots from garden centres, just cut some slits in the bottom of the pots to allow the roots to spread. The only reason i use pots is that a lot of the fish i keep like to dig and in the loose sand the plants never get a chance to take root properly without the pots.

 

[Lithril]

Ok kewl, I like the idea of that also I spose the gravel will let more water in hence nutrients etc due to the bigger spaces between stones. I'm going to be keeping Java fern & moss on wood and stones as well but I definately want to grow some larger plants for the fish to swim in and out of. Just added some to my 10 gal and although I don't think they'll grow in there the fish are having great fun darting in and out... it take a few days before they went near them though

How big are trumpet snails and are they easy to get hold of??

 

[CFC]

Trumpet snails can get up to a inch long and your lfs should be able to give you some for free, if not let me know and ill post you some of mine, i have more than enough

 

[Lithril]

OK thanks, may have to do that, although the lfs is a fair size I'm not sure if they'll know what trumpet snails I've been going in there a fair amount recently asking about things I've learnt on here and half the time they just look at you with that sort of vague blank expression that I'm come to know

Must admit it was them that sold me Green severum quite a while ago and said it would be ok in a community tank (ok I've learnt my lesson now).

 

[Pufferpack]

Just wondering what type of puffer you were looking to keep? I have been warned not to use the MTS in my Dwarf puffer tank due to the hardness of their shells. The MTS would be fine for the larger puffers but the Dwarfs are just too small and there is a possibility they they could break a tooth.

 

[Lithril]

That was going to be my next question once the tank is cycled, the lfs has colosseums in there at the moment, they sometimes have dwarfs and also figure of eights (thing they're brackish though). If need be I'll see what trimar has available. Any ideas?