Bored of gravel

[Dave_2133]

hi as the title says i'm bored fo gravel and just wondering on what else i could have on the bottom of the tank. i have 3 clown loach, six tinfoil barbs, two plecos,a pictus, and three other catfish but dont know the names. i'm using a fluvel 305 external filter and would anything clog up the filter, also got a air stone in the tank?????????

[aquarioten.nl]

i have sand in my thanks loaches love... when i don't feed them for 24 hours my ground just looks like a lunar landscape...

and is much easier to clean than gravel...

[Dave_2133]

would sand block my filter?

how would i clean the sand as i use one of them gravel cleaners that i have to push into the greval and it moves it around so the dirt comes out.

[TammyLiz]

To clean sand, use your gravel vac, remove any end piece that is larger than the tube. Hover about an inch above the sand, making swirling motions when needed to eddy the mulm up into the tube. It works well since unlike gravel, the waste stays on top of the sand.

[Dave_2133]

I'll give it a go. Would the sand be ok with internal filters(fluvel 2 + magic 280) as well as external filter as i tinking of putting in my smaller tank with the tiger barbs in?

[aquarioten.nl]

just clean the sand at least 3 or 4 times so that al the small stuff is gone. this will reduce the sandstorm when adding water again. this will clear up again in a few hours or a day. depends on the sand you are using. test the sand on calcium so it won't change your ph on the long term.

cleaning is easy you don't need a aquavacuum cleaner just a hose when you change the water once or twice a week. when taking 20% of the old water out just suck the dirt right of the sand in the bucket.

[TammyLiz]

I have a HOB in my tank with sand and I've heard of others also who have issues with sand getting into the impeller housing. My tank with sand is newly set up so I'm not sure how much it is going to happen to me, but I have already once kicked up a little too much sand, and even though only a couple of grains got sucked up it created a terrible grinding noise. I had to take the filter media out and rinse the impeller housing out to remove the sand. A pain in the butt but nothing was damaged. I am not familiar with how those internals work but unless the intake is very close to the bottom, you should be fine. I have decided to turn my filter off during maintanence to reduce the risk of getting sand in it.

[Dave_2133]

Thanks for the replies. just brought some today and going to set the tank up as soon as i get some rain water.

how can i clean the sand before putting it in the tank? i know with gravel you have to rinse it to get the dirt out of it but dont know much about sand.

[TammyLiz]

I put a couple of inches in the bottom of a bucket, went out into the back yard and ran a couple of gallons of water into it with the hose. Dumped the water out, repeated, sometimes stirring the sand but sometimes the water was so brown from just running it in I didn't see much need to stir. Repeat repeat repeat until the water is clear. Most of the sand stays in the bottom of the bucket. The little bit that you lose is unimportant compared to all the silt you would have in your tank if you didn't rinse it. I doubt all sand is quite as dirty as the bag I got, though. Hopefully yours is better. It took a couple of hours to get a whole bag of it clean, but IMO worth it to keep from having to look at a cloudy tank for a week. Plus, who knows how much extra mess you'd be getting when your loaches went digging if you didn't remove it.

[Dave_2133]

True. I'll start cleaning asap, lol. i'll let you know how i go on with it.

[NancyD]

I'm going to try sand too. The pool guys left an extra bag so I've been trying to convince my husband it's a good idea for at least part of a tank, he's very skeptical. We had some very small light weight gravel once that was a PITA to clean. So I showed him this post & a couple others. Now to put some in my Q'tank to give it try before setting up a new 75g. (He wanted a tank in the living room & it's the biggest that fits. ) TammyLiz thanks for the tip about the filter (& congrats on the baby front).
Nancy

[chris1932]

Try Seachem Onyx Sand looks great and is pretty small in particle size. Directions say it needs to be rinsed and that is an understatment. Put half a bag in a five gallon bucket and stick a water hose in and walk away for ten minutes.

Chris

[Dave_2133]

just clean the sand at least 3 or 4 times so that al the small stuff is gone. this will reduce the sandstorm when adding water again. this will clear up again in a few hours or a day. depends on the sand you are using. test the sand on calcium so it won't change your ph on the long term.

cleaning is easy you don't need a aquavacuum cleaner just a hose when you change the water once or twice a week. when taking 20% of the old water out just suck the dirt right of the sand in the bucket.

rinsed the fine grains out and started the new setup and guess what........the sand went straight to the bottom and not a sand storm in sight. i even tried to stir it up in tank and it just settled down without making a mess....Thanks for the tips and the tank looks alot better without gravel, that good i might even do my 4ft tank next?????