Sand In Your Tropical Fish Aquarium

[TylerFerretLord]

The beneficial bacteria are in the filter, not the water.

You should really do water changes.

 

[tyyrlym]

Yeah, a big reason to do water changes is to remove nitrates, pouring the water back into the tank is just going to let them keep building up. Not to mention depletion of trace minerals.

 

[Arktica]

thanks for this brilliant post i was just wondering how to do replace gravel with san.

time to delete my newly made thread

 

[Tw3lv3]

Fantastic article ive been worrying about this problem for ages as i read an article which said it was 1cm of sand now i know its actually 1 inch i feel alot better cheers

 

[reflexhunter]

have any of you tried caribsea eco sand? i have been thinking about trying it in my 90g that im resealing dont know if it would be worth the money.It has bacteria allready in it so it is supposed to cut cycle time down,but it is made for cichlids or fish that requior a high ph.Comes in black and white salt and pepper color...

 

[cowboy507]

Good article

 

[mbsqw1d]

i love fishforums! the only place on the web ive found a decent discussion about using sand vs to gravel (more importantly, the task of swapping it!)

ive been considering having sand as a substrate ever since i saw a video of some corys digging around in the stuff! I believe if we are to keep fish as pets and hence away from their natural habitat in fairness we should try and replicate this environment for them!
I currently have a 30G set up with 4 corys, 4 danios, 4 red fin tetra and a dwarf gourami. I'm not sure whats going to be more stressful, catching and transferring the fish to a temporary, smaller (18.5 litre!) container, or keeping the fish in whilst i do the gravel/sand swap...?

I'm planning on purchasing some play sand from argos (15kg = £2.89). I'm guessing i'll want two bags/30kg. ALSO, i'd like to have a sand/gravel mix. Anyone had success with this, any barriers used.. any good pics!?

I have plenty of poly wool on hand to clean up any cloudy water. Other than that. GREAT POST by Wolf 3-4 years ago lol and I CANT WAIT TO SWAP!!

 

[fallenstar]

One thing I've always wondered about having sand: Is it best to put any heavy dcorations down first, and then the sand? I was curious if putting heavy stuff on the sand would compact it (causing the anerobic stuff) and then harm the fish if one were to move the decoration.

hi y'll! fallenstar here. brand new member. first post. i have a 220 litre aqua one regency 100 tank.started off with jbl substrate mix, added approx 1inch of sand.dont know wot type of sand. bought it all from same store.sand is decreasing after a year of syphoning so ive been adding gravel on occasions. soon mixes in after clown loaches (2 quite meaty fellas) and 3 peppered catfish had a firk in there! i then added some much finer gravel, almost a very heavy sand. all of which i was told fine for bottom feeders. at some stage i lost my 3 julii corys, leopardy types. they had lost their barbels (as opposed to their marbles, like me). anyways, that was a good 6 mnths ago and touch wood all seems well.
introduction over, on to the compacted sand/anaerobic issue. i put 3 rocks down after the sand. i wouldnt say theyre massive, but heavy enough to weight it down! i thought praps the gravel mix (which i think looks good, quite natural) would provide some aeration and help break up compacted sand.
of course, that gravel wont have found its way under the rock. does anyone there think best to move rocks and 'wiggle'underneath?
seems like it will disturb my lovely tank and the inmates!

i also intend to add some more of my sand, as at one end its not even visible thro the glass. hopefully, as my sand is not very thick, that stinky old anaerobics stuff will keep well away!

One thing I've always wondered about having sand: Is it best to put any heavy dcorations down first, and then the sand? I was curious if putting heavy stuff on the sand would compact it (causing the anerobic stuff) and then harm the fish if one were to move the decoration.

hi y'll! fallenstar here. brand new member. first post. i have a 220 litre aqua one regency 100 tank.started off with jbl substrate mix, added approx 1inch of sand.dont know wot type of sand. bought it all from same store.sand is decreasing after a year of syphoning so ive been adding gravel on occasions. soon mixes in after clown loaches (2 quite meaty fellas) and 3 peppered catfish had a firk in there! i then added some much finer gravel, almost a very heavy sand. all of which i was told fine for bottom feeders. at some stage i lost my 3 julii corys, leopardy types. they had lost their barbels (as opposed to their marbles, like me). anyways, that was a good 6 mnths ago and touch wood all seems well.
introduction over, on to the compacted sand/anaerobic issue. i put 3 rocks down after the sand. i wouldnt say theyre massive, but heavy enough to weight it down! i thought praps the gravel mix (which i think looks good, quite natural) would provide some aeration and help break up compacted sand.
of course, that gravel wont have found its way under the rock. does anyone there think best to move rocks and 'wiggle'underneath?
seems like it will disturb my lovely tank and the inmates!

i also intend to add some more of my sand, as at one end its not even visible thro the glass. hopefully, as my sand is not very thick, that stinky old anaerobics stuff will keep well away!

 

[OldMan47]

Welcome to the forum Fallenstar.
In case you hadn't noticed, you are responding to a post that someone made 3 years ago.
I would give you a word of caution about mixing too many sizes of sand and gravel. The stuff that is made of lots of different sizes of sand and gravel with a small addition of binding material is called concrete. What happens is the large particles have the smaller ones fall between them and the even smaller particles fall into any spaces that are left. With all different sizes, the mix can become quite hard with no cement of any kind added. In places where they still use gravel roads, that is the way that they make them more durable. It is OK to have both kinds of substrate in a tank as long as you keep them separated so that you don't get that compacted mix going.

 

[The-Wolf]

as I'm back, I thought this was worth resurecting 

 

[RobRocksFishTank]

Wow, necromancing much?

 

[The-Wolf]

huh?