Sand substrate

  • We are currently upgrading MFK. thanks! -neo
Just something to think about.....play sand is a very fine grained sand and can cloud the water for quite a while if not washed extremely well. It is also more prone to be kicked up into filter intakes therefore damaging impellers. I have used play sand and these were my experiences. I now use pool filter sand and LOVE it. It is a slightly larger grained sand so it doesn't cloud the water as much or for as long and I think it tends to stay on the bottom more since it is heavier than play sand. I still recommend washing it thoroughly before putting it in your tank. You can get it from just about any swimming pool supply store for about $7-$10 per 50lb bag. I used 2 bags to make a 2"-3" layer in my 75 gallon tank.
 
I have silica sand, it looks good but not so much the palette I was going for in this smaller deeper tank. I have shared in all your experiences, and will take precautions to avoid these issues in my tank. If I set it up and its not working out the tank is small enough it won't be hard to clean it out and put in silica sand.
 
I've tried doing the whole fluorite layer with sand on top thing, and after a month you just end up with an ugly looking sand/fluorite mixture in your tank as the sand sifts down to fill in the gaps. I wont do it again. I may try small flower pots with fluorite in them buried under the sand.
 
ok so i searched for the "heaviest sand" and it came up with chromite and zircon sand.

they are similarity dense but zicron is more expensive. zicron is mostly inert so i suspect it is aquarium safe.

chromite tho is mostly iron and chromium
here are some info on chromium.
http://www.lenntech.com/periodic/elements/cr.htm

reading thru that i cant figure out if it's aqurium safe, the iron content would be good for planted tanks.

what i take from that article is that the oxizidzed state of chromium (VI) is what's toxic but i also read that chromium(VI) quickly changes to (III) in water which is non toxic. i think... oh well maybe someone can test it :)
 
kamikaziechameleon said:
Strange question, does CO2 dosing create a dependency in a tank for it to sustain plants. I've always stayed away from it for that fear. I'd like to grow my tank rapidly to a point then control and shape it if you get my drift.
Click to expand...

No, no long term dependency. Plants just really appreciate it - you will notice faster growth and better color in almost all your plants if you have CO2, and if you were to take it away your plants would just stop growing so fast and would "dull" in color. A perfect example is sunset hygro. Gets a really pretty pink color in a well lit tank with CO2. Take the CO2 away and the pink color dulls down back towards green. Still healthy, just not as colorful.

I recently set up my 75g as a fry grow-out tank, I used plant trimmings from my 125g to plant my entire 75g. 75 doesn't have CO2, but my 125g does. Plants are growing great in the 75g. I would post a picture but my work blocks photobucket (%^#$ers)....... - I'll add one when I get home.
 
I didn't have too much of a problem keeping plants down but a few lighter plants I did attach a rock just in case. Th only problem I had was cleaning the crap from the sand it's a pain. The worst thing about having sand is the clean up OMG head ache. Maybe it's because I got no patience for cleaning sand....lol.
 
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