Sand..

[newshound]

I use natural river sand in all my tanks.
Works great and has no sharp edges.
Lucky me I live in northern ontario.
Endless miles of free sand, driftwood and an amazing array of rocks.

[crazy loaches]

I was wondering about how much pool sand you would put in a 75 gallon tank.

100 lbs, more? or less?

thanks
Patti

Here is a calculator that will calculate silica sand. Just enter your tank dimensions and how deep a sand bed you want, and drop down the substarte to silica sand: http://www.plantedtank.net/substratecalculator.html

[Hlie]

Hi guys,

Decided to start a loach tank again after 2 years of hiatus...
So far got myself a 55 gallon and still looking for sand here in Spokane, WA.
Now, I got myself Oldcastle Natural Arena Playsand from Home Depot today. Really like the color but scared to use it since I have no idea whether or not it's inert....
I used pool filter sand on my old 40 gallon but found it's too "bright."
Any suggestion on what brand of playsand I should use?

P.S. Where's the video of my fighting clown loach that was posted here before?

[Rubix]

if its just playsand it should be fine. but if you want to test the sand fill a bucket up with water and test the ph, write it down. then throw some sand in the bucket of water and test the ph in a couple hours for comparison.

[qumqats]

> . . . snip .. . .
...something i am learning about right now is anaerobic gaseous pockets of air that get trapped in the sand. the sand should be 'stirred' every once in awhile to prevent these pockets from building up because they can be lethal to your fish (and lethal to your nose ) when disturbed if the gas has been building up for awhile.

This problem can be reduced if you have critters that are stirring up the sand some such as dojo or horseface loaches. Just make sure you don't have too much sand. 1" or less

[gorhaf]

what about using malasian trumpet snales since they are substrate shifters would they help or would the dojos just eat them as quickly as i put them in?

[qumqats]

what about using malasian trumpet snales since they are substrate shifters would they help or would the dojos just eat them as quickly as i put them in?

I knew there was some kind of snail that was good at stirring up the sand, but wasn't sure what the name was.

Aren't MTSs pretty big? Not only do I not think that dojos are very good at eating snails, I don't think that many if any loaches would go after MTSs due to their size.

I should also mention that dojos are cold water fish, and shouldn't really be kept in a tropical tank. ( not that my 2 seem to mind, but I keep reading that I'm being cruel to them for keeping them in too hot of a tank )

[Diana]

Malaysian trumpet snails grow to a little under an inch, but the shell is so hard that most loaches cannot break it open to eat the snail. Some fish learn to suck the snail out of the shell, somehow. I have not seen them do it, but I have one tank with empty snail shells, not broken ones. These are pond snails, not MTS, and the Loaches are kubs.

Play sand is usually a silica based sand. This is inert for pH, KH and GH, but will feed brown algae (Diatoms) for while. This is harmless, and easy to clean up. Most Loricariads eat it, Mollys, and several other fish.
Rinse it like crazy, and when you think you are done, rinse it some more. It can cloud your tank every time you vacuum if you do not get the fine stuff out, and this mix of coarser grains and fines is what makes it pack down and slow the water movement through the sand, creating anaerobic pockets.
Keeping the sand an inch or so maximum depth is a good way to prevent this. LIve plants and burrowing critters can help a lot, and every time you gravel vac, dip the siphon down into the sand. Perhaps vacuum half or a third of the area one week, and another area the following week.

[crazy loaches]

I'm not really sure if my Loahces ate MTS as the MTS are rarely seen during the day but at one point my planted tank was infested with them... easily hundreds of them. It was kind of freaky the first time I saw them, checking my fish at night with a flashlight and there are little things everywhere, all up the glass, on all the driftwood, plants... at first I like panicked that my tank was infested with something terrible. Then after lookin really close at them I realized they were snails. Never did see a big one so I assume once they were large enough the Loaches would eat them. 99% of them were 1/4" or less, most looked like little round 1/8" white spots. The only time I ever saw any bigger than that was when I saw a clown swimming around playing keepaway with the shell sticking out its mouth like a big cigar. Over the course of many months I reduced feeding (one of the main causes for MTS explosion being overfeeding) and that and the Loaches seem to have eliminated them for the most part, as its been a half year since I've seen any.

[Desi]

My loaches will eat MTS for snacks. I tried to use them for the sand and they all were eaten. now I have them in a lil 5 gallon tank and grow em to about 1/4-1/2" and then feed them to my loaches. They do suck them out of the shells somehow and then carry around the shells for awhile after ward. I guess they are trying to give me a hint or something. Its kinda funny to watch it.

[qumqats]

geeze! my mistake, I thought MTSs were in the 1" range and much too large for loaches to eat.