I am upgrading my tank very shortly. I currently have gravel in my tank and my pike likes to burrow in it. I was thinking about switching to sand so he doesn't hurt himself. While I should have asked about this in set ups I figured I would ask here because we all have pikes. I was reading a lot in regards to pool filter sand. I don't want to ruin my filters with sand so I wanted to ask what you guys thought. Does anyone else have sand? I also have Plecos in my tank. Is this easier to clean? How does this all work?
Switching substrate.
- Thread starter TheNewSeverum
- Start date
I have used pool filter sand in the past, currently using black sand. I prefer sand over gravel for the looks and it's easy to clean. Just swirl the gravel vac over the top and poop gets sucked up.
As for sand getting into the filters, I turn my filters off while I do tank maintenance so never had an issue.
As for sand getting into the filters, I turn my filters off while I do tank maintenance so never had an issue.
That makes sense. I'm just worried about my large royal kicking up everything during a spaz attack he has every night lol
The pfs I have is pretty coarse, like the salt on pretzels so it settles fast. I had finer sands in the past and the main problem I had with filters was not from fish stirring it up or too much suction but from my geos picking a mouthful of sand and swimming across the tank to spit it directly into to intake. I've had so much sand in my fx5 that the sponges were like bricks but it still ran like a champ. My ac110 on the other hand is always grinding, but I just switched to the coarser sand so I need to clean the ac and I'm hoping the sand is too big to get caught in the impeller.