Sand Vs Gravel & Snails (yuck)

[lol]

Hi all

I have a 3' tank with:

2 angels & their wrigglers (just about to start swimming); 2 x-ray tetras; 1 chinese algae eater.

At the moment I have gravel in the bottom but saw a beautiful tank in my LFS with sand instead. Are there any pros and cons to sand vs gravel, or is it just cosmetic?

Also, I bought 8 bunches of plants from my LFS a couple of weeks ago and now have snails... Seen at least 5 small ones which I've removed, and eggs all over the place. I removed the ornaments and wiped them off, cleaned the gravel really well and now have removed the plants. Only 2 bunches survived the algae eater so it wasn't a massive upheaval...

Is there any way to keep the horrible snails at bay, other than just to keep an eye out and remove them?

Thanks in advance!

 

[Mution]

if there trumpet snails, id be more than happy to have them off you

pm me if you want to get rid of them to a new home

 

[SnBMeg]

The thing to keep in mind about sand is that it needs to be stirred around from time to time, to distribute nutrients and keep bad stuff from building up under the surface. If there are burrowing fish in the tank then it's taken care of, and otherwise you can do it yourself. Also, care needs to be taken when vacumming, so that it doesn't just get sucked out. Some live plants may have trouble rooting in sand since it becomes much more compact than gravel.

The really nice thing about sand is that wastes stay on top of it, and so can be easily removed.

One of my tanks has a bit of an infestation of pond and small ramshorn snails. It's bad enough that I've given up on getting all the eggs out, and I've taken to just squishing the snails against the tank walls. I've found that it's a lot easier and more efficient than just removing them, and my gourami figured out within 3 days that smushed snail makes a tasty snack. :9

Also be sure to check your filter for snails and eggs. I had thought that my tank was clear of them, but while doing a media change I found that they had gotten all the way down the tubes and into the canister. Shortly after I found that came the boom that I'm working on beating back now.

 

[toppman]

^^^^^^^^ lol yh iv done that b4 its fun aswell but im always nervous im gona squash a fish

 

[noshybabs]

^^^^^^^^ lol yh iv done that b4 its fun aswell but im always nervous im gona squash a fish

Snails are good, there eat up all the waste food that usually just rots on the bottom of your tank. It is a fallacy that snails are bad. If you don't want to get an infestation, just make sure you don't over feed your fish.

I have two tanks, ONe with Sand and one with gravel.


The sand one looks nicer and the plants seem to prefer it, but its much harder to clean than the gravel one. If you gonna have an air stone in a sand tank then you need to keep it at least 2 inches away from the level of the sand. Otherwise it will just kick sand up all the time and everything in you tank will be covered in it

Other than that im sure its just a matter of prefference for most people.