sand in aquarium

[stormlord]

a friend gave me 50lbs of clean white fine grain sand and wanted to put it in my aquarium, the guy at the petstore told me it would destroy my filter, i have an above water filter, the only problem i could see would be if fish stirred it up and enough sand got around the propeller it might stop it but its driven by magnetism so surly it couldnt hurt anything could it?

if it does what if i took off the extension so that the filter tube was up high enough that it would make it unlikely for sand to rise as high

 

[Tempestuousfury]

I've always wanted to knwo how one cleans below the sand. If there were a way to do this without moving the sand, then any non-burrowing fish should be ok in that tank.

 

[tstenback]

If your intake is well above the sand any stirring up by fish or cleaning should have no impact on the filter parts at all. I have been running an aquaclear hob for 3 years in a sand tank and have never had a problem of sand build up. I do clean the filter during maintenance but other than that no specila treatment required. If you were worried about it just get some sponge and put it over the intake of the filter. HTH

 

[stormlord]

ok cool, i'll add it to the tank, however how would i then clean it when it gets dirty?

 

[tstenback]

unlike gravel sand packs together and all of the .....stuff... sits on top and you just syphon it off. HTH