Hello all, so i had a small tank around 3 years ago (55 litres) which made me want a bigger tank, so around a year ago i got a new tank (260 litre)..... since getting the big tank ive been through a few substrates, before finding the perfect one for me. Heres my journey on finding the perfect substrate!!
So after my small tank always had a brownish coloured sand, i decided i wanted sand again, the sand in the small tank looked excellent, so i thought i'd stick buy it in the big tank. first stop was to go out and buy a couple of new bags for a total of £28. I felt this would be enough to cover the bottom, and then have replacement for everytime i cleaned the stuff of the sand (where i'd remove abit of sand uncontrollably). After a hard time getting the sand clean, and drying the sand then using the 'bottle method' (i'll post the bottle method vid at the end of the post) i left the tank a few days to clear up before i had the tanks substrate sorted....... or not!
1st Substrate (brownish sand)
(as you can see above the gravel is a large grain)
Now this sand was quite a large grained sand, this didn't bother me, the pic above was taken without the light and you can already see the sand looks really brown, maybe this is because its a larger surface area than the small tank ad on the small tank it looked really light.
Small tank (with same sand as above);
I bared with the sand in the new tank although when the light was on the tank looked a yellow/brownish colour as the light reflected off the sand and made the aquarium look.. very unfishy like sand. After several weeks i decided enough was enough and i had to do something about it! I then went for a gravel ive had for quite a while, a blue/white/blackish gravel. I changed the sand from the tank into gravel after quite a hard time getting the sand out.... below i finally accomplished it!
2nd Substrate (white/black/blue gravel)
Again though as time went on the tank just wasn't looking good to me, it made me want to keep the light off the tank 24/7 which is pretty pointless, i had the gravel in around 2-3months before i decided i needed a change, so i went out and looked at quite a few sands/gravels, but i told myself that i needed to have sand, as sand is a more natural substrate and of course because i keep corys, it'll help them strive! I went to my LFS where i got some pure white silica sand. This cost me £14 for two 5kg bags. So i proceeded to put this into the tank, as the sand was proven to not change the PH, or water chemistry i went ahead and did the change with fish in the tank, as the tank is already an established tank. 3 hours later and we have our new substrate!
3rd set of pictures with new Substrate (pure white silica sand)
So now im around 95% happy with the tank, even if the white is really strong, my question for anyone reading who may know the answer is.. does lighting affect how the sand looks? Im going to take a bit of sand out as i do think ive put slightly too much in, and i'll hope this tones down the brightness of it. Anyone looking at getting new substrate, make sure you 100% know you want it, its taken me many hours swapping and changing, and its not very good on the fish.. during the whole process i lost around 3 fish out of 23.
So has anyone else been through a similar process to me? What gravel did you end up sticking with in the end?
What is the bottle method for sand?
Thanks for reading, i appreciate it very much.
So after my small tank always had a brownish coloured sand, i decided i wanted sand again, the sand in the small tank looked excellent, so i thought i'd stick buy it in the big tank. first stop was to go out and buy a couple of new bags for a total of £28. I felt this would be enough to cover the bottom, and then have replacement for everytime i cleaned the stuff of the sand (where i'd remove abit of sand uncontrollably). After a hard time getting the sand clean, and drying the sand then using the 'bottle method' (i'll post the bottle method vid at the end of the post) i left the tank a few days to clear up before i had the tanks substrate sorted....... or not!
1st Substrate (brownish sand)
(as you can see above the gravel is a large grain)
Now this sand was quite a large grained sand, this didn't bother me, the pic above was taken without the light and you can already see the sand looks really brown, maybe this is because its a larger surface area than the small tank ad on the small tank it looked really light.
Small tank (with same sand as above);
I bared with the sand in the new tank although when the light was on the tank looked a yellow/brownish colour as the light reflected off the sand and made the aquarium look.. very unfishy like sand. After several weeks i decided enough was enough and i had to do something about it! I then went for a gravel ive had for quite a while, a blue/white/blackish gravel. I changed the sand from the tank into gravel after quite a hard time getting the sand out.... below i finally accomplished it!
2nd Substrate (white/black/blue gravel)
Again though as time went on the tank just wasn't looking good to me, it made me want to keep the light off the tank 24/7 which is pretty pointless, i had the gravel in around 2-3months before i decided i needed a change, so i went out and looked at quite a few sands/gravels, but i told myself that i needed to have sand, as sand is a more natural substrate and of course because i keep corys, it'll help them strive! I went to my LFS where i got some pure white silica sand. This cost me £14 for two 5kg bags. So i proceeded to put this into the tank, as the sand was proven to not change the PH, or water chemistry i went ahead and did the change with fish in the tank, as the tank is already an established tank. 3 hours later and we have our new substrate!
3rd set of pictures with new Substrate (pure white silica sand)
So now im around 95% happy with the tank, even if the white is really strong, my question for anyone reading who may know the answer is.. does lighting affect how the sand looks? Im going to take a bit of sand out as i do think ive put slightly too much in, and i'll hope this tones down the brightness of it. Anyone looking at getting new substrate, make sure you 100% know you want it, its taken me many hours swapping and changing, and its not very good on the fish.. during the whole process i lost around 3 fish out of 23.
So has anyone else been through a similar process to me? What gravel did you end up sticking with in the end?
What is the bottle method for sand?
Thanks for reading, i appreciate it very much.
