Sand Or Gravel That's The Question

[tankedagain]

Hey Everyone,
I have a 20 gallon high tank with plastic plants. The fish I have are 2 lyre tailed platium mollies, 2 fry mollies 2 swordtails, a cory and a pleco.I presently have gravel bottom, but I really love the look of sand.Just bought a house and thought it would be a good time to change if I decide to go to sand.How much sand would I need is it hard to keep clean? Also planning on getting more corys. So what i'm asking is if someone could please give me the pro's and con's of gravel vrs sand. As always any help will be appriecated.

 

[Phoenixbaby]

use sand, its kinder to the cory

i have a 7gallon and that took 2 small bags of black sand, so id say about 5 bags for u

sand is harder to clean than gravel but it looks better, and also is better than gravel in the sense that no nasties can live under it unlike gravel

 

[CageUK]

All of my tanks have sand in them and those that I bought with gravel already in got changed to sand at the earliest opportunity.

As has already been said, corries and in fact any bottom feeders just love to dig around in the sand and it is much kinder to them. Kulli loaches etc like to bury themselves in it and if you have a reasonably deep bed, planting is very easy.

Sand is also a lot cheaper. As you will find reading around the forum Argos play sand is ideal for aquariums and is only around £3 per bag (if you live in the UK).

I actually find that sand initially is quite easy to clean. Out of the bag I rinse it 2 or 3 times until the cloudy sand clears quite quickly then put it in the tank. Normally it then clears after a couple of hours.

I use a battery vacuum in my weekly hooverings and I invariably suck some sand up. I just wash the sand and put it back into the tank...no problems. You can see the dirt a lot easier on sand and this can be a good or a bad thing.
Bad because cosmetically it does show the dirt, but good because it makes it easier to see where to clean.

Sand is much closer to the environment of most of the fish we keep so it makes them feel at home.

So in summary I would say sand everytime, no question

 

[doresy]

Sand......accept no compromise

 

[darknirvana217]

Use sand, especially with the corys.