Sand Lovin' Critters

[soritan]

Sooo... I'm debating putting sand in my ugly little 10gal. At the moment, it stocks a single female betta, three african dwarf frogs, and seven ghost shrimp (4-5 of which will probably find other homes).

But since it's a planted tank, I'll need more than the recommended dose of sand to keep my plants in place. It's very densely planted in there, so there isn't much floor space -- so cories aren't an option.

Are there any other fish who would churn up my sand for me a bit, who would live with my current stock of 'fish'? Do Kuhli Loaches require much floor space?

That's the most recent picture of my tank. It actually has 2 more plants than that, even. 1 large water sprite in the empty space, and another cryptocoryne in the foreground.


I suspect the only thing I can add to this tank is Malaysian Trumpet Snails, but would they be enough to keep 3" of sand blasting sand from overly compacting?



If sand proves to be too complex, I may just revert to standard, black, aquarium gravel. But honestly, after all the research I've done, I think sand is my best option, given my tank occupants and feeding habits.

 

[freddyk]

Trumpet snails are excellent and don't harm plants, and in planted tanks the roots of the plants themselves will help.

 

[rdd1952]

One thing you will have to be careful of with trumpet snails is over feeding. I really didn't think I was feeding too much but in any case I ended up with a terrible population explosion and had to completely change my sand to get rid of the snails.

 

[soritan]

Well, if they don't popluate as fas as Pond Snails do (and I've read that introducing MT snails to a tank is totally ineffective in controlling pond snail populations, as the two simply can't compete, pond snails win every time), I'm probably cool as far as MT snails go. My pond snail population is... get this, a mighty 2 strong, for the last 2 months. I've seen them actually try and breed, and each time, the clutch yeilded almost no snails, or one snail. The snail eggs were usually eaten by my shrimp.

So, great. If MT snails can handle the churning, and my plants can handle the depth, and I can maintain easier, and it's cheaper than gravel, than I'm totally set. I can change out the substrate as soon as I buy a bag of sand and have some time set aside.

I wonder how many pounds of sand would be OK for 1 planted 10 gallon and 1 unplanted 5 gallon? Hmmm....

*edit: Anyways, I went ahead and purchased some sixteen grit sand blasting sand. Since it's graded, all the particles are even, and it's a nice color, too. Sort of a coffee-cream kinda color (this is the dry color). It's also rated for filtration. 100 pounds and I'm set to 'go' for several tanks. My 10g, my 5g, and my other job's 2.5g.