Can I Add Sand To My Tank That Already Has A River Pebble Gravel?

FishForums.net Pet of the Month
🐶 POTM Poll is Open! 🦎 Click here to Vote! 🐰

BADGUYSKI

New Member
Joined
Feb 16, 2014
Messages
2
Reaction score
0
Location
US
I'm not really new to the hobby but I started a new tank (55 gallon) after my red devil cichlid passed away after 20 years in my 29 gallon, Well the Tank is up and running well and cycled spot on.
 
I had a bag of river pebbles (1/4" in to maybe 2.5" ) and thought that would be nice...then when my tanks set up I seen how beautiful a sand tanks was ( I have one oscar and one Jack Dempsy and 5 silver dollars and a blue emerald cat... oh 4 skirt tetras left over from cycleing...won't last long as the oscar ate the other 15).
 
I would like to clean the tank real well and lay sand or a super fine gravel over top and thru  the river pebbles to not only help with clean up but I think it would look nice with the bigger stones pokeing thru....and the biggest thing is not having to rip out the pounds of river pebbles and stress my fish as my tank is just perfect now.
 
Can I do such a thing?
 
And hello all!  this is my first post  8)
 

Attachments

  • 1gravel.jpg
    1gravel.jpg
    56.9 KB · Views: 142
I'm afraid all the sand will fall through the gaps.
 
You'll need to take at least most of the pebbles out. It will be bit stressful for the fish, but they'll manage.
 
If you don't want the skirt tetra, then you should really take them out and rehome them. Leaving them to be eaten is not something a caring, conscientious owner should do. Apart from anything else, if your oscar or JD get a fish stuck in their mouth, it could have a very bad ending.
 
You can probably get away with leaving a very few of the largest stones in but as Flutter says, the sand will just drop through. It's just like a box of cornflakes when you find at the end that all the dust has gone to the bottom of the packet.
 
Yeah, I figured that it would mostly fall to the bottom and is what I wanted but i will remove some stone every water change a lil at a time as the oscar is going to remove all the plants n stuff soon anyway...and yes the poor skirts were bought for .49 cents a piece and I thought would be good for cycling cuz of price...I don't feed live tho due to parasites, I think these last 4 are pretty smart and stick with the dollars..almost like they are the kids...cute
 

Most reactions

trending

Staff online

Back
Top