How much sand?

[Polyptasaurus]

just enough sand to cover the bottom, thats it. if you even have an inch... its way too much. i'd say like 1/4 of an inch of sand on the bottom of tank. too much sand will inevitably trap garbage which leads to dangerous levels of ammonia trapped in your tank. stirring up that sand later will put anerobic gases into the water column, dropping your pH to dangerous levels.

or, just get pool filter sand so you can gravel vac it, then you'll be fine. i dont buy sand from fish stores anymore though, cuz home depot is literally 1/8th of the price.

 

[jcardona1]

just enough sand to cover the bottom, thats it. if you even have an inch... its way too much. i'd say like 1/4 of an inch of sand on the bottom of tank. too much sand will inevitably trap garbage which leads to dangerous levels of ammonia trapped in your tank. stirring up that sand later will put anerobic gases into the water column, dropping your pH to dangerous levels.

or, just get pool filter sand so you can gravel vac it, then you'll be fine. i dont buy sand from fish stores anymore though, cuz home depot is literally 1/8th of the price.

still going at it with that nonsense i see?

http://www.monsterfishkeepers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=249621

 

[Toby_H]

just enough sand to cover the bottom, thats it. if you even have an inch... its way too much. i'd say like 1/4 of an inch of sand on the bottom of tank. too much sand will inevitably trap garbage which leads to dangerous levels of ammonia trapped in your tank. stirring up that sand later will put anerobic gases into the water column, dropping your pH to dangerous levels.

or, just get pool filter sand so you can gravel vac it, then you'll be fine. i dont buy sand from fish stores anymore though, cuz home depot is literally 1/8th of the price.

If you are only going to use 1/4" of sand then I suggest you go with a bare bottomed tank. With less than an inch of sand your fish will move sand and expose the bottom of the tank in many places and in my opinion this looks very odd.

As for the rest of the above post... this topic has been debated to death and dismissing all of the myths, relying solely on user experience... hundreds if not thousands of memebers here use sand as substrate and keep it between 1~2.5 inches with no problems... Let's please not let this thread turn into that debate all over again...

 

[HarleyK]

Mods should make that a sticky!!

You should brush up on your algebra and geometry

 

[JohnM]

You should brush up on your algebra and geometry

Sorry I wasnt that good at math

I ended up using pool filter sand. A 50lb bag gave me almost an 1".
Is this enough or should I add some more?

 

[Toby_H]

1" is fine... 2" is also fine... if you are happy with it then leave it... if the fish start digging and you feel it needs to be a little deeper feel free to add more...