Sand as a Substrate

[bcfd144]

yep.. that should do it...

 

[Jon M]

Well that's what I did and actually I think I need to go grab another 50 lbs tomorrow. The sand seems to condense to less when you wet it. I have a 4.5 ft by 23" area I need to cover. At that price I have no problem buying another 50lb tomorrow just going to be a pain to rinse more is all.

 

[CLDarnell]

Hi Jon,

Play sand is going to be a lot dirtier than filter or aquarium sand. I would rinse it until your water runs clear. otherwise, that "brown gunk" is going in your tank.

You don't need a lot of water pressure. Too much will have the sand itself flowing over the edge of your bucket. Have something more than a trickle, maybe about half of your faucet pressure. Stir it up every minute or so and rinse until clear.

Good luck!

 

[FishFreak95]

I used playsand. My cichlids loved to sift food from the sand so food was rarely wasted. And my Crayfish loved to burrow in it. Also most of the debris settles on top of the sand or gets sucked into the filter. Its actually a lot easier than any other gravel i tried. Right now im stuck using regular aquarium gravel.

 

[Jon M]

Well I'm draining my 55 to like 10 gallons and moving that to another wall and refilling and putting the 125 gallon where the 55 was where it will stay but I'm going to let the sump run on the 125g for a couple days first. I'm pretty sure the 3 chambers of mechanical filtration over a few days will help out with filtering the sand quite a bit.

 

[gar man]

I'm thinking of doing this in my 55 Native set-up, what would be better, pool filter sand or play sand?

 

[AOmonsta]

I'm thinking of doing this in my 55 Native set-up, what would be better, pool filter sand or play sand?

I use pfs in my native tank. Looks real good in it. I would suggest spending an extra few dollars on pfs than play sand.

Here's a pic of my native tank with pfs:

 

[gar man]

Looks like a good set-up, what do you have in it? And how much was the bag, pounds per bag, ext.?

 

[AOmonsta]

Looks like a good set-up, what do you have in it? And how much was the bag, pounds per bag, ext.?

All I have in it currently is a single bluegill and some minnow.

But yea the pfs cost me around $6-7 dollars at a Pool Pros store. This was for a 50 lbs bag. That was only size they sold.

 

[Nighttouch]

I'm thinking of doing this in my 55 Native set-up, what would be better, pool filter sand or play sand?

For a native tank, I would use play sand. I don't if all play sand is like the stuff I bought, but mine iss sand with tiny little pebbles in it. This makes the bottom of my tank look more like a lake/creek bed that plain pool filter sand.