Moving From Stones To Sand

[darkwolf29a]

i would never go back to gravel since i have sand. i an oscar and a 13'' common plec and i find it no problem with the waste. it just sits on the top waiting for you to syphon it out.
I only get sand in my filters from my common flicking it everywere

LOL...Yeah, I have that problem. But, I like the sand too much to get rid of it. And, my Oscar really seems to like digging in it too. He just doesn't make as big a mess with it. LOL

I don't think I'll ever have another tank with gravel in it. In fact...I have LOTS of extra gravel running around now. LOL

 

[deogan]

your dimentions seem to be about 59 us gallons.....this would be a bare minimum for 1 oscar with nothing in the tank and good filteration<noo tankmates>

if i was you id go striaght for a atleast 5ft/2ft/2ft.......=148us gallons........

and pairs of everything is not a good idea.better to go with 1 of each.....plecs are very messy as oscars<heavy filteration

got the idea chief. I will try to enhance the dimensions as much as I can. But guys I am still in a fix over the sand issue. Could any one please tell me how to clean the sand substate with a normal gravel vac? Because in India we donot get very good substate cleaners. Only option is the gravel vac. And will it be effective to clean the sand in that big a tank with gravel vac on a weekly basis? Please advise. I am not bothered about the filteration I will take care of that.

 

[chishnfips]

cleaning the sand is easy, I only use a gravel vac as well, just sit the gravel vac just off the surface of the sand and it will suck up all the waste, you will get some sand sucked up with but you can easily put that back in once you have finished. stir the sand around a bit too so it doesn't build up any toxic gasses, but you wont really have the sand deepenough for that to be a mojor problem

its simple, cleaning it is very easy

 

[rsands]

i have a python and what i did was just remove the gravel vac part and this means the suction is concentrated and very powerful from the pipe...this allows you to hover it back a bit from the sand and the suction of the water moves all the dirt into the flow with no sand at all

 

[deogan]

Ok Guys. Heeding to advise from you fellows, I upgraded to a 125 G tank two years ago. Now I have two oscars, two walking cats, two severams and one texas. The tank is running fine till now. One of my oscar is about nine inches. the walking cats are over the foot. other fishes are about six inches.

I am still not over the idea of using sand. But what I fear is that with fish that big, it will be chaos all over. Any one having same kind of setup with sand? Right now I have red gravel that is visible in my avtar.

 

[braddiboy625]

ive just changed to sand and i found out all u have to do to clean it is use a gravel cleaner, or get some cories, thats what i did lol, but its a good choice as most fish love it and it looks loads more natural than gravel, what i did though was mix some natural coloured gravel with the sand and it looks awesome!

 

[Jallen]

Wow man, long time since this thread was used.

Nice to hear everything is sorted and you have a good big tank for those fish.

I've seen oscars move gravel and sand around. If you tried sand I think you might often see the glass on the bottom of the tank where they push it out of the way.