Sand Or Gravel And How Many Fish?

[VKL]

Hi, I'm new to this site and have for about 6 months now had a 60 litre tank. I'm upgrading to a 125 litre, ( would love to get bigger but space and money prevent this!). Firstly, is sand better than gravel? Also how do you clean sand? Next question is, I will have in the new tank, 1 angel, 1 betta, 1 gourami, 3 tiny black balloon mollies, 3 black phantom tetras, 4 platies, 3 cory and 1 pleco. Is that too much or ok? could I have more?

Sorry for the blast of questions but I'm sure I could find more!

 

[Jamepsss]

I prefer sand over gravel, Easy to clean, just hover a syphon about an inch over the surface. I'll leave the stocking to someone else.

 

[minnnt]

I would go for gravel. I had sand and it was a mare. Go for the gravel that is smaller and rounded.

As for your stock list, i'm not sure you should have the betta and the gourami together as they may fight... Balloon Mollies are cool mate, i love mine!

 

[lilfishie]

i personally prefer sand, its easy to clean once you get used to it

the betta/angel/gourami will not get on you should only have 1 of the 3 in your tank

 

[Monty-2010]

I had sand, thought it looked ok but was a pain in the rectum to clean, ended up chucking it and replaced it with gravel much better!!!

 

[eldraW]

I have seen an experience with Angel fish being nippers, they are best kept in a pair or more too (to my knowledge) but when my friend had two they seemed to nip other fish as a gang lol, and they could find the Betta an easy target maybe with it's big fins.

 

[twodoctors]

I would go for fine gravel as it is easy to clean and food tend not to fall between the gaps like larger gravel (own experience). Sand is (probably) more difficult to clean to start with and there's this phenomenon about gas build up etc. Google it!

As for stocking, not sure about overstocking. Try a q a d v i s o r. Tetra are schooling fish, ie need 6 or more. Same with corys, but 3 is minimum I think).

Adrian

 

[kporteo]

What type of pleco?? Some plecos can get biiiiiggg!!

+1 to the tetras and corys being schooling fish, personally id have 6 minimum of each.

Also, I looked into black phantom tetras and got told a few different times that they can be a bit aggresive and aren't too good with some fish like gouramis etc

K

 

[karin]

Your problem will be the angel, betta, gourami mix. All variations of this CAN cause big problems. I think combining all three is asking for it. In part it will depend on the individuals though. But these 3 are often found to be enemies in the tank.

Based on my experience and preferences, I would leave the betta in a nice 5-10 gallon by himself and get one glorious angel. (I prefer angels to gouramis so I'm sure someone else would offer something different).

Up the corys and tetras to a min. of six and get a bristenose plec. As others said, be very careful with your pleco selection as some grow to over a foot and would look stupid in a 125L.

 

[Squidward]

I used to have sand with my Malawi Cichlids.
It's better in that it doesn't let the dirt fall in the gaps and is therefore easier to hoover clean.
The problem I found is that it sometimes ended up in my filter.
And also, I had to be very careful when using the magnetic algae cleaners. If even 1 grain of sand got trapped in the magnet, it would scratch the glass.

I now have gravel in my general tropical tank and much prefer it.

 

[VKL]

Wow! Thanks for all your advice. All taken on board. I will definately be asking more questions in future. Just to say though my glorious betta and gourami completely ignore each other.....which by the sounds of things is the perfect way! If I did introduce an angel I would get a very young one.....watch this space! Oh and my pleco is (as I'm told only going to get 7" long......again, watch this space!! Thanks again