How deep is too deep (sand)?

[Moloch]

I replaced my play sand with brown (turned out red) colorquartz last night. After rinsing the 50lb bag I'd say I probably ended up with 40lbs in the tank, not sure how deep it is overall as I didn't do any even spread. Today I picked up a 50lb bag of black to mix some in and tone the color down a bit.

So my question is...I know with sand beds you can end up with gas pockets & whatnot (I DON'T want to try and do a deep sand bed, I have digging cichlids and I'm just not up to that risk). But, if I'm doing a weekly wc & doing a quick gravel vac every day or two, do I need to worry about it if my sand ends up 2 or even 3 inches deep?

I'll probably only add 15 or 20 pounds of the black (the rest will be replacing the gravel in my 20) but thats still going to add a bit of depth and I just don't want to overdo it and endanger my fish...I can always remove some of the red beforehand so I can get the right color mix without making the sand too deep.

Or, since I am doing the regular maintenance (which affords the opportunity to regularly stir the sand, not to mention my diggers & I can add snails) do I not even need to worry about it?


Aside from that...do you guys think with the reddish/dark brown sand that I have, adding black will tone it down a bit like I think/hope it will? Or am I about to ruin the look of my substrate?

 

[NgaNasty]

i dont think you can have to much. i think 2-3" is perfect but more is ok

 

[ar0wan]

You're pretty safe under 3"

 

[smpage]

you can have it as deep as you want as long as you sift it with your fingers when you do water changes or you use Malaysian Trumpet snails. I prefer MTS.

 

[kamikaziechameleon]

Yeah just stir to the bottum every month and you'll be fine. you can have 10 inches deep as long and you stir it up regularly. The deeper the more often you should stir but you get the picture. Bubbles form from neglect, so be attentive to you tank and you shouldn't have a issue.

 

[dragonfish1ca]

Isnt the sand almost a solid due to there not being any crevaces to get debris in?
I use about 2" in mine and when i syphon its maybe the top 1/4 inch that has anything in it...... the rest is always clean???
90% of waste just rolls across the top witht the current and wont get clogged like gravel with large crevases for waste to be trapped.
Correct me if i am wrong?

 

[Moloch]

I guess enough stuff makes its way into the sand that it can decompose anaerobically causing some sort (hydrogen sulfide or something like that) of gas pocket, if the gas pocket gets disturbed, it can pretty much insta-kill your fish.

On the flipside, if you have deep enough sand that it won't ever get disturbed, it can be extremely effective at keeping your tank levels outstanding. I don't really understand it all, I just know you can use it as a beneficial part of your filtration, but it might possibly kill everything in your tank if things go wrong.