Hello Everyone,
After years of keeping my fish with black sand and black backround, I collected quite some experience and thought it would be good to share it for others.
This information was gathered very subjectively, so there is always room for different experience or error.
First of all, why black sand ?
For me it was that I got tired of white or yellow sand and after seeing a lot of Aquariums online, some fish tended to develop really cool patterns and colourations instead of the often bleached looking you get in a more brightly coloured tank.
And I was mostly happy with that.
Especially predators, like gars, bichirs and catfish showed very cool looking and intense patterns. The bichirs seemed to really bloom in the dark environment.
A lot of fish like arowana, stingrays, tetras, plecos, corys did not really change their pattern or colouration, but contrasted more intensely.
But some fish also looked worse, like certain silver dollars and cichlids, that had their bright colours blacked out to better fit in.
HOWEVER, there is an effect on certain fish, that is so bad that I now get away from black sand again.
And that is the behavior of certain South American Cichlids. The reason I blame it on the Sand is that the issue always resolved the Moment I put them in a lighter tank.
Not all were affected, but some of them, like Cichla, became extremely tense to the point of exploding everytime anything happened while others, like (young) Heros or some Geophagus became unreasonably aggressive, to the point forming couples resovled and they barely ate since they didn't even stop chasing each other nonstop to eat.
It is a very bad experience, and I do not wish this to anyone.
I hope some of you can make use of this information, for some fish dark sand is nice to have, but for others it is not.
After years of keeping my fish with black sand and black backround, I collected quite some experience and thought it would be good to share it for others.
This information was gathered very subjectively, so there is always room for different experience or error.
First of all, why black sand ?
For me it was that I got tired of white or yellow sand and after seeing a lot of Aquariums online, some fish tended to develop really cool patterns and colourations instead of the often bleached looking you get in a more brightly coloured tank.
And I was mostly happy with that.
Especially predators, like gars, bichirs and catfish showed very cool looking and intense patterns. The bichirs seemed to really bloom in the dark environment.
A lot of fish like arowana, stingrays, tetras, plecos, corys did not really change their pattern or colouration, but contrasted more intensely.
But some fish also looked worse, like certain silver dollars and cichlids, that had their bright colours blacked out to better fit in.
HOWEVER, there is an effect on certain fish, that is so bad that I now get away from black sand again.
And that is the behavior of certain South American Cichlids. The reason I blame it on the Sand is that the issue always resolved the Moment I put them in a lighter tank.
Not all were affected, but some of them, like Cichla, became extremely tense to the point of exploding everytime anything happened while others, like (young) Heros or some Geophagus became unreasonably aggressive, to the point forming couples resovled and they barely ate since they didn't even stop chasing each other nonstop to eat.
It is a very bad experience, and I do not wish this to anyone.
I hope some of you can make use of this information, for some fish dark sand is nice to have, but for others it is not.
