Loaches Online Forum

Will fine s grade ceramic coated quartz get blown around in a river tank with 2 power heads running in a 36"18" base? I am thinking of using this substrate option but I dont know if it will stay put with high water movement.

I have not used the specific sand you mention but I have used fine aquarium sand and it was not good. Blew all over the place. I found that with even a very light current it would still move. Even with everything switch off, vacuming was really difficult and would coat all the plants etc with "dust". I would think the really fine sand would only work in a setup with very little current and then some type of plant matter to "bed" the sand together so it wouldn't move.

My setup has a decent flow now and medium sand works nice, even put some coarse sand in the area where the current just skims the bottom. There are enough organisms in the sand to bind everything together, hence nicely under control. I use 2 pumps (Korali 3 & Aquaclear 70) with 2 x aquaclear 70 filters in a 65gallon (4 ft long).

This is only my experience and perhaps somebody has a way to keep fine sand under control. There are lots of people on this forum who experiment with some weird things to come up with often brillant solutions to problems like this.

http://www.aquaristikimdetail.net/wbb3/ ... ndex2.html

Just used that old link in a German post, as I have it at hand I copy it also here. Please scroll down for pictures. It is garnet sand, thus 2,5 times heavier than normal sand. The grain size is 0,2mm that is rather fine, but I need it that way. It is heavy enough to maintain a hill (slope) in the direction of the moderate flow (outlet on the bottom, at half hight of the slope. The slope is built into a channel).

What type of quartz were you planning to get? Don't believe forum posts saying that ColorQuartz is the same as SpectraQuartz. They are very different. I've got the coarser grained SpectraQuartz in my tank and it is a little sharp on the edges compared to the ColorQuarts or the new Estes CeramiQuartz.

I definently would not have bought the SpectraQuartz had I known this, its just not as nice looking as the ColorQuartz and it seems a little too sharp at the edges for my taste.

The rough stuff I have is the larger grained variety and it seems to hold its own against the flow, unless my airstone gets too close to the substrate; then its a sea of fine black particles.

Where can you get garnet sand ?

I just called 3m about their colorquarts product and found out that they discontinued it last year and could not give me any referrals on where to get it. So it looks like that is out of the question.

Looks like their is not a dealer for the Estes CeramiQuartz in my state. Man an I screwed. Looks like I will have to use gravel in my high water flow river tank.

Have you tried calling the masonry stores or anything similar? I called 5 or 6 stores in my area and one of the 'Rock and Block' places still had a pallet of super fine ColorQuartz for sale, but I stupidly went for the SpectraQuartz thinking it was the same thing only cheaper.

Don't give up, I bet some contractor supply place or wholesale masonry place will have some.

I will have to try that tomorrow. Thanks.

Qualityguppies101 wrote:Where can you get garnet sand ?

I got mine at a watercutting place. Places that cut variuos materials with a waterbeam for the industrie. The sand is added to the water beam for more abrasion. Sandblaster places also may have some.

This older thread also was about sand:

http://forums.loaches.com/viewtopic.php ... ght=garnet

wasserscheu wrote:
... It´s also used in waterfilter-industry and sometimes in watercutting or sandblasting. Make sure it´s NOT broken sand, so the individual seeds are round and not sharp. ... it can be sifted through gills it may be more suitable for loaches,...

Pic´s i´ve posted in keith recent thread ("my fishroom update") page 2.

It´s double as heavy as normal sand, but the filter still sucks some in, as I´ve plenty of bottom dwellers.
It´s a semi-precious stone, so 100% natural. If you pick seed-size 1mm you almost have juwlery in your tank

Re the ceramic, never heard around here about it, I´ve plastic covered black gravel, which worked fine (lost a bit color though). Make sure it´s not too sharp on the corners...