Sand

[sjolliff]

Im wanting to change my sand, to a different brand,

Im nearly at the end of my fishless cycle, does the sand hold much bactera?

 

[tropic_john]

I woudn't think that the bacteria would grip onto the rough edges of the sand [if sand has rough edges.] but you get some bacteria in gravel as they can live on the rough edges of it.

 

[Bignose]

Bacteria will live on every surface of the tank. I am not sure what tj means by "rough edges of the sand".... Bacteria are several thousand times smaller than any edge we can see on gravel or sand. Think of this an analogy: from space the Earth looks relatively smooth. But, you get closer, and there are valleys and hills and the like. We still build houses on valleys and hills. The bacteria are us, and a grain of sand or gravel is the planet. Take out a magnifying glass and/or microscopeAll and there will be all sorts of bumps and cracks and valleys on both sand and gravel that you may have never known existed.

All that said, bacteria can excrete substances to help them glue themselves to almost any surface. They are also small enough that van der Waals forces are significant (these are the forces that hold together very small objects). Their primary concerns are how much nutrients will be available at that site. While there will be some amount of nutrients (oxygen and food being the two big ones) in the sand, most of the the bacteria are going to accumulate in the filter simply because that is where the nutrients are going to be more plentiful. That is, the filter brings food enriched water and oxygen enriched water right to the bacteria.

I think that so long as you keep your filter in good shape, you shouldn't notice much drop if anything if you change out the sand. Just keep testing to be sure.

 

[bala]

man, you knwo your ### edited to remove bypass of swear filter ###

 

[Bignose]

bala,

I know that you are new here, but please don't attempt to bypass the swear filter in the future. We don't allow anything even remotely close to posting swear words, and if you do it in the future, you could lose your posting privileges.

Thanks,
Bignose