Playsand Ok As Substrate?

[Phoenixfish]

ah i think i can handel sand, but at the worst i can revert to gravel, thanks anyways

 

[Squid]

with sand you will need to hoover it every day. it looks ice and bright, but gettin back at 7pm evert night, i just dont have it as a priority.

I HAD my eheim 2028 set up with the intake powering an undergravel filter. It was ultimate low maintanence. Just hoover once a week and thats it.

every day.. i do mine once a week and it looks fine..

Do you have any cory's.. they make having sand easier, as they keep it clean, and i enjoy watching them in the sand..

Squid

 

[Phoenixfish]

thats the reason why i want sand, because i want large ish shoal of bronzes

 

[PDX]

How will i go on? I am having two tanks set up one with a pair of firemouth's the other with a pair of convicts (both breeding pairs) will they create alot of waste and make the sand difficult to clean?

 

[Phoenixfish]

hmm thats a balance then, are you prepared to clean it up to everyday

 

[Iron Man]

All digging/burrowing/bottom dwelling fishes go great with sand. Its pretty entertaining to watch cories stab their whole faces, up to their eyeballs sometimes, down into the sand looking for food.

I recently had 8 in my 55 gallon and they made a lot of poop on the sand though....nothing hovering my phython over the sand couldnt handle.

And I agree on the statement that it seems to go much quicker washing out small amounts than fewer large ones. Wouldn't seem to work that way but it does.

I didn't just let my water run clear out the top though......I stuck the water hose down into the sand......swishing it around good, letting the water go to the top of the 5 gallon bucket, and then pouring it out quickly.....going into a gentle pour as I get near the surface of the sand.

I do lose a little sand when I wash it out, but it gets washed out quickly, easily, and thoroughly using my method. Besides its only $3 a bag where I am.

Just remember no matter how well you are going to clean it out....you are going to get SOME cloudiness after pouring it in. This should clear up when you turn your filter back on (if you have a canister you can leave it running).

 

[blitztidus]

I personally don't have sand, but are you also supposed to boil it to make sure it is free of all disease or is that optional or something

 

[Phoenixfish]

I personally don't have sand, but are you also supposed to boil it to make sure it is free of all disease or is that optional or something

wow i didnt know that, (boiling bit) even proper aquarium sand bought at a lfs?

also i think i read this in the marine but does the sand do damage to the filter, more spesicically the internal wheel/paddle thingy (the names on the tip of my tongue )
it said somethig about a cover..

 

[kaz petts]

not too sure about the damage to the filter thing. To be honest I have been using sand substrate for a good year now and my fish love it. I used the sand from Argos too. I used to have an internal filter (fluval 4) and I never had any problems with the sand clogging the impellar (I assume that is what you mean by the internal wheel/paddle thingy). I now have an external filter (fluval 404) which i find a much better filtration system
Cleaning the sand is easy, all you need to do is just use the tube part of your gravel cleaner, obviously it will suck some of the sand up with it but that is part and parcel of using sand.
Just one thing you need to watch out for with sand are air pockets. Someone with a bit more knowledge should be able to explain these to you but from what I understand the air pockets can and often do contain nasty toxins.

 

[Phoenixfish]

first of yeh the impeller, and isnt there the tip of only puting an 1" of sand to stop anerobic breakdown aka bad gas (i think?!?) and also ive heard tha tthe sand can go bad if you dont touch it every so often, what it mean by that, do you have to leteraly move the sand around with you hand or just gentaly move it everyso often if you get what i mean

 

[mark.w.jones]

The pockets of air in the sand are made by anaerobic bacteria of some sort I think I read somewhere. These bacteria grow in air pockets in the sand without using oxygen and are more toxic than aerobic bacteria. If these air pockets are released by burrowing fish they can cause them to be damaged or die. Someone on here said that he / she pokes around in the sand with a wire coat hanger every week to release any small pockets before they get too big.

ps play sand is completely sterile and highly tested so as not to be dangerous for kids who eat it etc. so as far as Im concerned is perfectly safe to use in tanks + 100 times cheaper than real aquarium stuff.

 

[Iron Man]

Poking around with a wire coat hanger is an excellent idea, and would even allow you to get under rocks/decor you wouldn't want to or couldn't otherwise remove.

You don't have to worry much over anaerobic bacteria unless you're overstocked, and even then just disturb the sand bed every couple of months or so to make sure its in check.

I used to use my hand to stir it deeply (but not to kick it up all over the water) every few months when I had cichlids. Everything was fine.

Its rare....but there was an instance where someone wasn't getting under his rocks and when he finally did remove the rocks and the gas released into the water, along with its repugnant odor, some of his fish died.

We finally figured out it was the one place he didn't stir his sand. That's very rare.....but it could happen.

Also...anaerobic bacteria will form "air" bubbles under the substrate. These bubbles are harmless nitrogen gas, a result of them having converted nitrates back into the ultra harmless nitrogen gas found everywhere in the atmosphere we breathe. The bubbles won't hurt anything and eventually rise to the surface and burst.

They form the bubbles, they don't "live in" bubbles. They live deep down in the substrate, in oxygen depleted water.

 

[Phoenixfish]

plants help stop this happening to doesnt it (real) and underwater heater cables but i wont have the cables well very unlikly