Sand, our experiences
- Thread starter ccebr
- Start date
i've used large river pebble, small river pebble, black aquarium sand, and play ground sand which i currently use on my 240g african cichlid tank with about 30-35 medium to large fish and i will never go back to rock/pebbles...i rinse half a bag at a time and do so about 5 times each half, water clouds about 5-10 minutes then clears very nicely, its alot easier to keep clean and looking good, i simply vaccuum the poo off the top once or twice a week i can vaccuum a top layer of sand out and it doesnt matter cause i can always add more since its so cheap.
I use play sand in my tanks and the only problem I have is when my mbuna dig and spit out the sand directly into the Fx5 intake. Otherwise I love the look and the lack of gravel-vaccing I would have to do otherwise.
I used to use pool filter sand before I switched back to gravel. The only problem I had was that my cichlids would stir the sand up close to the filter intake, and nearly destroyed my Fluval 304 with all the sand the got into it. I guess with big enough and active enough cichlids, that would be a problem with any sand. I switched back to gravel because 1) it doesn't show all the waste as well as the sand (I use the natural earth-tone gravel, not any crazy colors), and 2) Its easier to clean when you do need to vacuum it. Personally, I would probably not go back to a sand substrate unless I decided to keep Eels or something like that which requires the softer sub.
what type of sand you use? Play sand
did you thoroughly rinse it before adding? No, didn't know I was supposed to.. lol
did the tank cloud up at the start? yeah, took a couple days to settle
does the tank randomly cloud up after time? nah
how do you get the water clear? filter and waterchanges
how big are the fish in the tank? too big. bigger then they should be.
if you could choose a substrate now, what would it be? pool filter sand. gravel seems kind of "nooby" to me, and bare bottom just isn't very attractive to me..
did you thoroughly rinse it before adding? No, didn't know I was supposed to.. lol
did the tank cloud up at the start? yeah, took a couple days to settle
does the tank randomly cloud up after time? nah
how do you get the water clear? filter and waterchanges
how big are the fish in the tank? too big. bigger then they should be.
if you could choose a substrate now, what would it be? pool filter sand. gravel seems kind of "nooby" to me, and bare bottom just isn't very attractive to me..
