sand and beneficial bacteria...

[rocksoutforcheese]

we just switched to sand from gravel in our 55 gal tank and my fiance's brother is always giving him his two cents. He told him not to be surprised if we started having our fish die because sand won't hold the bacteria as well... now my fiance is driving me crazy asking me questions... he's kind of new to this stuff... definately not worried about our fish dying lol they're perfectly healthy and water is great, but could it take a turn for the worse?? is this stuff about a sand substrate true?

 

[ShipOfFools37]

While gravel is good for hosting BB, your filter should also be a large source of BB in your tank. As long as you didn't do a 100% water change, remove all gravel and put a brand new filter on the tank, you should be alright, I believe.

 

[Nic]

you should be fine... i would up the water change percent a hair... you did remove alot of BB but like stated your filter should keep up with it..

 

[dr_sudz]

Depending on how thick your sand bed is it can be alright or you can run into problems. If the sand bed is over 2.5-3" thick then you can have a lot of dead spots, this is good for a time but can be disastrous in the long run. Nitrogen bubbles build up in the sand and when they finally release can kill the fish with the gas. this is easily prevented by stirring the sand every few days to at least once a week. Other then that its fine. There is TONS of places for the BB to grow, and if you were to have a sump you could even produce a remote deep sand bed that would help break down nitrates.
I wouldn't sweat it too much tho. There are a lot on here that have sand beds that work fine.

 

[Yanbbrox]

Can't see a problem if the gravel is a couple of inches thick

 

[rocksoutforcheese]

okay thanks everybody! i did change one of the filters a couple days ago but we have filter media that stays in there all the time that should have plenty of good bacteria in it. It's a 55 and there's about 50lbs of sand in there... not even 2" all around, maybe if i totally evened it out lol... but anyway not worried about it too much now

 

[Gr8KarmaSF]

You should be fine.

this is easily prevented by stirring the sand every few days to at least once a week.

Another great reason to have rays and eels!

 

[FSM]

Has anyone's fish actually died due to too much sand?

 

[Gr8KarmaSF]

Has anyone's fish actually died due to too much sand?

Its not the sand itself, its the lack of maintance that results in fish deaths, whether it be crap or gas build up, etc.

 

[ShadowBass]

Unless you have undergravel filters or really inefficient or crappy filtration in general the type or amount of substrate you use or remove won't cause you to lose all your biobacteria and kill your fish.

If your fiances brother knew what he was talking about all the fish in my barebottom tanks would die. Not so.

There are cases where removing or changing substrate can have a disasterous effect but these are cases where people are relying on their substrate for their filtration (as in undergravel filter).