Best Substrate???
- Thread starter eball2k
- Start date
Depends on the fish but I prefer sand with my cichlids...they seem happier than with gravel and thats all that matters to me...as long as you keep up with the maintenance on it 
I have only kept tanks with large gravel or pebbles, and I'm looking for a change.
I see some people have nothing on the bottom, some people have sand, gravel, even tile.
What is the easiest to maintain? or makes the best contrast to bring out the fishes colors.
I see some people have nothing on the bottom, some people have sand, gravel, even tile.
What is the easiest to maintain? or makes the best contrast to bring out the fishes colors.
3m colorquartz.
Why? Because I like sand better than gravel, and I like colorquartz better than playsand. (In other words, its really all I've tried so far)
Settles fast, super-smooth, feels great to stir it with your hand
(seriously though I love playing with the substrate now
) and it looks great imo. I got chocolate brown and it turned straight red under my lights so I mixed in half a bag of black. I think it came out looking pretty good. From across the room at normal viewing distance it doesn't look like two different colors of sand, just looks like a nice dark sand.
Why? Because I like sand better than gravel, and I like colorquartz better than playsand. (In other words, its really all I've tried so far)
Settles fast, super-smooth, feels great to stir it with your hand
(seriously though I love playing with the substrate now) and it looks great imo. I got chocolate brown and it turned straight red under my lights so I mixed in half a bag of black. I think it came out looking pretty good. From across the room at normal viewing distance it doesn't look like two different colors of sand, just looks like a nice dark sand.eball2k;4561938; said:
I think easiest to maintain would have to go to bare-bottom. Thats kind of a no-brainer. I guess tile would be just as easy as bare, but you might have to pick the tiles up from time to time and you could risk scratching your glass I guess. I'm not personally a fan of either of these setups, but they can be pretty neat. I just know what when I was taking the gravel out of my 20g, my convicts tried with all their might to stay on areas that still had gravel/dust as I was getting the last out. They were NOT fans of the bare areas.
I think the easiest ACTUAL substrate to maintain IMO/IME is sand. Seems like every time I vacuumed the gravel in my 20 it stirred up more **** than I could even imagine I had put into the tank. It looked ok and was fairly easy to deal with, but it kept my tank pretty dirty. Now yes, I was overfeeding & feeding fairly crap food (it was my first setup, come on
) but even towards the end of the gravel when I had gotten better about everything I didn't like dealing with it.With sand I just use an airvac to keep the food & waste off the top daily and at my weekly WC I'm sure to stir it up real good (I think I have at least 3 maybe 4 inches of sand in my 65...about 75lbs in a 65g tank)
Thanks for the good info, thats a nice pic.
Have you had any trouble with the sand getting into the filters, or causing any other problems?
Also how would I clean the sand, I have always vacuumed the gravel but that obviously would suck up the sand. Do you just vacuum above the sand?
Have you had any trouble with the sand getting into the filters, or causing any other problems?
Also how would I clean the sand, I have always vacuumed the gravel but that obviously would suck up the sand. Do you just vacuum above the sand?
So far I haven't noticed any problems with my filters. Thats with a magnum 250HOT in a 20gal and a rena xp3 in a 65. Its possible for the sand to make it into the filters if you aren't careful, but I also haven't been TOO careful and so far no issues. I'm sure I have a bit of sand stuck in my filter media.
As far as vacuuming you just have to adjust your technique a little bit. The siphon will indeed pick up the sand. The flipside is that waste and food don't sink into the sand like it does into gravel. So you just hover above the sand with your vac and pick up the crap. You might pull a little bit of sand out here & there but not really enough to worry about. After that you just want to kill the siphon (or use a different tool or your hand) and stir the sand around a bit. Depending on how deep it is you can form gas pockets if you don't stir it up from time to time. I have a fairly deep bed and I intend to stir it by hand every saturday with my WC.
But, what I was referring to was cleaning the sand prior to adding it to the aquarium. There are plenty of threads about it (I even have a few from when I was doing this).
Here's my regular maintenance to give you an idea:
I feed my fish 2-3 times a day. I tend to overfeed a bit because I'm still trying to figure out how much they eat.
Once a night (ideally) or at least every other day I take an air powered vacuum (Read this thread if you don't know) and clean up the surface of the sand.
On saturday I do about a 30% wc. If I haven't just cleaned up the sand with the airvac I'll hook up my gravel vac, but if the bottom isn't dirty I just slip the siphon tube behind my spray bar to hold it in place and cut on the python to drain & fill. While thats going on I stir the sand either by hand or with a piece of PVC or whatever.
thats it...Its not much better or worse than gravel, I just like dealing with sand more than I do gravel. I think it stays cleaner and easier to clean, and I just prefer the look of it.
As far as vacuuming you just have to adjust your technique a little bit. The siphon will indeed pick up the sand. The flipside is that waste and food don't sink into the sand like it does into gravel. So you just hover above the sand with your vac and pick up the crap. You might pull a little bit of sand out here & there but not really enough to worry about. After that you just want to kill the siphon (or use a different tool or your hand) and stir the sand around a bit. Depending on how deep it is you can form gas pockets if you don't stir it up from time to time. I have a fairly deep bed and I intend to stir it by hand every saturday with my WC.
But, what I was referring to was cleaning the sand prior to adding it to the aquarium. There are plenty of threads about it (I even have a few from when I was doing this
).Here's my regular maintenance to give you an idea:
I feed my fish 2-3 times a day. I tend to overfeed a bit because I'm still trying to figure out how much they eat.
Once a night (ideally) or at least every other day I take an air powered vacuum (Read this thread if you don't know) and clean up the surface of the sand.
On saturday I do about a 30% wc. If I haven't just cleaned up the sand with the airvac I'll hook up my gravel vac, but if the bottom isn't dirty I just slip the siphon tube behind my spray bar to hold it in place and cut on the python to drain & fill. While thats going on I stir the sand either by hand or with a piece of PVC or whatever.
thats it...Its not much better or worse than gravel, I just like dealing with sand more than I do gravel. I think it stays cleaner and easier to clean, and I just prefer the look of it.
Yea, after looking into it, I think I might go with a very small size gravel or large grain sand. I like the look of sand but am worried about it getting stirred up too often if it's too fine.
I found this "high desert earth sand" at home depot for $4 per 50lb bag.
It had to be rinsed first but its extremely white and bright, the pictures don't even really do it justice.
Ive had gravel and I think sand is 100x better. All the crap and debris moves along the current on the surface of the sand and into the filter instead of getting stuck down in between gravel.
Stirring up sand hardly releases any debris at all, while anyone who has gravel knows how dirty the water gets if you stir up the gravel. Sand essentially works the way a non-substrate tank works...not trapping any debris so the filter gets it all, but it looks a lot better and provides more places for bacteria.
Sand also looks a lot better in my opinion.
I havent tried pool filter sand but I'm going to try that on my 20g i just set up that currently doesnt have a substrate. This high desert sand has some larger grains scattered about in it (about 3mm diameter at most) while I think pool filter sand is overall a lot more fine. The larger grains might be an advantage because this sand doesnt get stirred up at all. A gravel vac wont even suck it up if you run it along the surface to pick up debris.
One thing that does happen is the sand turns slightly brown for about a week at first, and from what I've read its bacteria breaking down the silica in the sand? It goes away after a few days though.
This is the high desert sand in my 125g
It had to be rinsed first but its extremely white and bright, the pictures don't even really do it justice.
Ive had gravel and I think sand is 100x better. All the crap and debris moves along the current on the surface of the sand and into the filter instead of getting stuck down in between gravel.
Stirring up sand hardly releases any debris at all, while anyone who has gravel knows how dirty the water gets if you stir up the gravel. Sand essentially works the way a non-substrate tank works...not trapping any debris so the filter gets it all, but it looks a lot better and provides more places for bacteria.
Sand also looks a lot better in my opinion.
I havent tried pool filter sand but I'm going to try that on my 20g i just set up that currently doesnt have a substrate. This high desert sand has some larger grains scattered about in it (about 3mm diameter at most) while I think pool filter sand is overall a lot more fine. The larger grains might be an advantage because this sand doesnt get stirred up at all. A gravel vac wont even suck it up if you run it along the surface to pick up debris.
One thing that does happen is the sand turns slightly brown for about a week at first, and from what I've read its bacteria breaking down the silica in the sand? It goes away after a few days though.
This is the high desert sand in my 125g
it is funny that you should ask this question, my friend and I have had this same conversation so we set up a few tanks
1) 55 gal Natural Gravel dwarf Cichlid
2) 72 gal zoo something (like dirt) schools of diff tetras
3) 110 gal filter sand fire eel and cat fish
4) 10 gal reg. sand (from lps) guppy, snail & shrimp
5) 35 gal Oil Dry puffer
6) 12 gal Nano Salt tank coral sand
7) coming next 29 gal will have a different kind of dirt and sand base
all are live planted tanks, all have diff. light systems from T12 Aquadic, T8 Aquadic, T5 sun & autinic, T5 sun blast, then halogens
it is a good thing they are in diff. houses or the whole street would go dim when we turn the lights and air on in the Morning we just got together this weekend and talked about how thing are going with the diff. substrates
you should always consider what fish you will be putting in the tank, the oil dry is awesome for plants and the roots... however I could see my fire eel sending that stuff right up the filter it is so light, the dirts are very nice plants seem to do great in it however if you have a fish that tears things up you will never be able to see inside the tank..... Now sand either kind seems to be a steady substrate it does not get as dirty as the gravel in the lower levels, it always looks great and will not hurt the fish (that we have) and for the fish that like to toss the substrate around sand does not go up very far and comes down quick.... the down side is that vacuuming can be daunting, if you push down into it like you would on gravel it goes out the tube very fast
yes I have nice sand in my flower bead where I drain the tank for water changes.... Gravel is always a good stand by easy to keep, easy to clean can hurt your live plant roots and fish that like to bury themselves..
not an expert by any means just sharing how our little science project has been going.... and boy has it been a chore,
also another thing to keep in mind is how soon do you want to add fish after you add your substrate some of our tanks have taken up to 1 (one) month to settle down
1) 55 gal Natural Gravel dwarf Cichlid
2) 72 gal zoo something (like dirt) schools of diff tetras
3) 110 gal filter sand fire eel and cat fish
4) 10 gal reg. sand (from lps) guppy, snail & shrimp
5) 35 gal Oil Dry puffer
6) 12 gal Nano Salt tank coral sand
7) coming next 29 gal will have a different kind of dirt and sand base
all are live planted tanks, all have diff. light systems from T12 Aquadic, T8 Aquadic, T5 sun & autinic, T5 sun blast, then halogens
it is a good thing they are in diff. houses or the whole street would go dim when we turn the lights and air on in the Morning we just got together this weekend and talked about how thing are going with the diff. substrates you should always consider what fish you will be putting in the tank, the oil dry is awesome for plants and the roots... however I could see my fire eel sending that stuff right up the filter it is so light, the dirts are very nice plants seem to do great in it however if you have a fish that tears things up you will never be able to see inside the tank..... Now sand either kind seems to be a steady substrate it does not get as dirty as the gravel in the lower levels, it always looks great and will not hurt the fish (that we have) and for the fish that like to toss the substrate around sand does not go up very far and comes down quick.... the down side is that vacuuming can be daunting, if you push down into it like you would on gravel it goes out the tube very fast
yes I have nice sand in my flower bead where I drain the tank for water changes.... Gravel is always a good stand by easy to keep, easy to clean can hurt your live plant roots and fish that like to bury themselves.. not an expert by any means just sharing how our little science project has been going.... and boy has it been a chore,
also another thing to keep in mind is how soon do you want to add fish after you add your substrate
some of our tanks have taken up to 1 (one) month to settle down