Sand size and depth for geos
- Thread starter Goonie
- Start date
Depth may not be crital, but the grain size of Pool Filter Sand, has worked for me.
The sand below, is what I prefer to use in all cichlid tanks (including Geophagines).
The tank in the pics had about 1" ( @ 50lb bag of PFS in a 6 ft tank).
I usually bought mine from a company the sold abrasives for water treatment plants at $5 per 50 lb bag.
The sand below, is what I prefer to use in all cichlid tanks (including Geophagines).
The tank in the pics had about 1" ( @ 50lb bag of PFS in a 6 ft tank).
I usually bought mine from a company the sold abrasives for water treatment plants at $5 per 50 lb bag.
I mostly use pool filter sand, one tank has Eco-Complete cichlid sand-- my geos get the pool filter sand. I've read contradictory things on preferences or grain size for different types (pool sand vs. play sand, etc.). I've seen some people complain play sand is too fine, floats too much when it's stirred up, meaning more can get in your filter. My pool sand has different size grains, including some larger grains, almost tiny pebbles. Some say that means it was manufactured (crushed) vs beach collected. Whatever the case, I've been happy with it. Doesn't float too easily, which is a good thing.
Smoothed over depth for me is probably 1.5 inches or so; depends on the tank, some a bit more or less. It's not critical, I just eyeball it. After that my fish move it around making mounds and low spots, which doesn't hurt anything, especially with fish that sift sand anyway.
You can make yourself a little crazy doing too much research on sand imo, different opinions and contradictory information, or details about composition that don't matter much in an aquarium (other than those sands that specifically buffer hardness or pH, such as the cichlid sand). I haven't had any issues with what I've got.
Smoothed over depth for me is probably 1.5 inches or so; depends on the tank, some a bit more or less. It's not critical, I just eyeball it. After that my fish move it around making mounds and low spots, which doesn't hurt anything, especially with fish that sift sand anyway.
You can make yourself a little crazy doing too much research on sand imo, different opinions and contradictory information, or details about composition that don't matter much in an aquarium (other than those sands that specifically buffer hardness or pH, such as the cichlid sand). I haven't had any issues with what I've got.
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I just started using it, but it is very clean. I'm using it with sponge filters so impellers aren't a concern for me, but it's just a hint lighter than the Black Diamond blasting sand that I also use, hardly even noticable. I use bdbs in my 40b shrimp and endler tank with an HOB with no issues at all. I do run a prefilter sponge but is more for keeping shrimp and fry out of the filter though. Now if you had large cichlids spitting it everywhere I could see the becoming an issue, but imo a prefilter sponge solves all that. The large ones from Aquarium co-op are great, they are closed off on the bottom end, and can be stretched to fit over intake strainers in some cases so you can run the plastic strainer and the sponge at the same time, as I did with my marineland.
