Switched to sand and painted blue. -Several Pics

Switched my 46 gallon over from gravel to Pool Filter Sand and painted blue with latex paint w/ roller.

Before:


Sand used, 50 pound bag:


Temp Home:


One coat:


Filled with cleaned sand first filling of water:


Decor and fish back home:


Three days later:


Close up:

Yes, one of the only tacky decorations I'll put in.

Last think I forgot to mention was the pre filter I used.
I purchased a women's slip-on sock from Target. It's small, black, and thin so you can hardly see it. Just pulled it over the intake.
And the pleco cleans it off every night for me.

But I think I could run it with out the pre-filter if needed.
This sand is HEAVY. I can kick it up my hand and it just drops right back down.
But I rinsed most of the crap out of it before putting it in.

I got the 4 Balas about 2 years ago. They were about 1 to 3 inches when I got them.
This tank is actually too small for them already. I'll be upgrading them to a longer bigger tank as soon as possible. I never lost any of the Balas, but I've lost plenty of other smaller tropical fish back in the day. I just try not to over load the my aquariums with too many fish and have enough filtration.

I got the idea to use Pool Filter Sand from different threads on monsterfishkeepers.
Everyone said that if you clean it enough before putting in your aquarium, that the water column will clear up very quickly. My tank was clear the next morning.

Also, acording to the threads I read, Pool Filter Sand is alot heavier than regular aqarium sand, so you don't have to worry about getting sand sucked up into the filter as much.

There is no "perfect substrate". I've heard from various places that Beneficial Bacteria won't grow very well in Pool Filter Sand. If that's true, then I've just removed a HUGE portion of 'real eastate' for BB by removing my gravel. But I think it looks better and with regular water changes, the water quality shouldn't change much.

I got the sand in a 50 pound bag at HomeDepot for $5.
Plus a new 5 gallon bucket for $5 to clean the sand in.
The Paint, tape, and small roller was about $20.