I was thinking of putting sand in my next tank, but i heard it was hard to vacuum. Would it be better to just get gravel?
Vacuming sand????
- Thread starter noidea
- Start date
No, get sand. Gravel is harder to vacuum. With sand, the debris mostly sits on top of the sand and makes for a quick easy vac. When I use gravel, I feel the tank is always filthy because you just can't get all the crap out of the gravel and it's a lot more time and work.
i have mixed feelings with sand and gravel. i feel like its easyer to clean gravel since oyu just stick the tube into it and all that nasty stuff goes out. sand you cant stick into since oyu suck up all the sand. you also miss stuff in gravel unlike sand it just sits on the top. But sand this will get under it and you wont find it for a while till you move all your sand around.
hope that gives you some idea, i still have sand in all my tanks though, switched over from gravel, looks nice
hope that gives you some idea, i still have sand in all my tanks though, switched over from gravel, looks nice
Having switched to all sand in 6 out of 7 tanks (one's planted), I highly prefer it. I'll stir it around some to ensure I get all the gunk--seems alot easier than gravel/crushed shells, etc. And, like wangster said, it looks nice. Just ol' play box sand (just check the bag)--rinse it alot in buckets and it cleans up almost white. Saw "paver sand" today, coarser and dark, like salt and pepper, but I don't know if it's safe.
Cheaper than Tahitian Moon by far.
Cheaper than Tahitian Moon by far.
You could always get a larger grain of sand that wont get sucked up....
Just gotta do the research!
Just gotta do the research!
Gr8KarmaSF;956652; said:
OR......correct me if im wrong,
vaccume the top of the sand.......then..............just turn the filters / powerheads off while agitating sand to bring up crap and gunk from underneath the sand...................and let settle, then vac again
I don't prefer either for cleaning. Sometimes I like the look of each better. They both vaccuum pretty easily for me. I have estes black marine sand in three tanks. It's very easy to vaccuum. And the poo NEVER sits on top.. It's always mixed in and I have to let the sand get 12" up my 24" vaccuum to get all of it out.
I use play sand and all the crap sits on top. I love it... My agaronite which is bigger... is pretty good. The stuff sits in the top layers and I get it out with minor vacing.
I wonder why no-one has made a very large diameter gravel vac, designed to have a low enough flow rate not to suck up sand....