Sand Maintenance

[madmom]

On Monday I switched over to sand. Got lucky as there was no clouding at all. The cories love it and they started rooting through it immediately. I only have a few plants at the moment but plan on adding more. My question is what should I add to help prevent gas pockets from forming in the sand. Other than cories I have an ADF (plan on more later ) and swords, platies, and guppies. I heard kuhlii's and MTS are good. Are they? Also would fert tabs hurt them?

 

[ox5477]

Khuli's and MTS' are pretty good for it. I would go more MTS' if it is critical that you need the sand stirred around more. Khuli's will root around a little but most of my khuli's won't go under a few mm's of sand to look for food.

 

[Teelie]

Don't worry too much about it. Sand that's under 2" deep doesn't develop it and other than freak occurences, it should never cause a problem. The bubbles just go straight up and out of the tank just like air wands or bubbling decorations do. Won't harm the fish at all.

 

[tophat665]

I've used sand in my bigger tanks to create the contours of the substrate, and then put other substrate over it. It's up to 6" deep in places.

I've got MTS and kuhlis.

Should I be worried?

I'm going to want to do the same thing again on 3 more thanks in the next year, so I'd really like to know before I shoot myself in the foot

 

[madmom]

Thanx for the quick replies. My sand barely hits 2" in the deepest parts.

 

[Teelie]

I've used sand in my bigger tanks to create the contours of the substrate, and then put other substrate over it. It's up to 6" deep in places.

I've got MTS and kuhlis.

Should I be worried?

I'm going to want to do the same thing again on 3 more thanks in the next year, so I'd really like to know before I shoot myself in the foot

No you shouldn't be. Between them, they'll do plenty of digging and sifting and besides which, the odds of the dangerous gases actually staying in the water long enough to harm your fish are low.

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

Actually with the depth of the sand thing, the reason why gas bubbles develop in it is primarily due to trapped dead organic matter in the sand- though obviously with a shallower substrate you are less likely to get this. If you stir the sand up when you do your water change, this will prevent gas bubbles from building up.
Khuli loaches will make next to no impact on the sand, they are like corys, and although MTS turn the sand deeper, they rarely go very deep very often- you'd need a whole hoard of them to make much of a difference (a lot of people also find they breed out of control or to undesirable numbers).

From my experience of sand over the past couple of years, my advice to you is to go for whatever depth sand you want (i have a 3inch thick layer of fine white silica sand in my main tank for example), plant or decorate it how you like, just remember to keep it clean when you are doing your weekly water change .