Which Is Heavier ?

[shadow1200]

Has you people may know by now my fish tank is up stairs. I have been looking at peoples tanks on here with sand in . They look very nice.
I have gravel in my 4ft but want to get rid of the gravel and replace with sand.
I have used google to see which is heavier and some sites say both the same and some sites say sand is.


sand or chippings/gravel which is heavier ?

 

[BigbruiserAl]

which is heavier 10kg of feathers or 10kg of lead see were im going

 

[weezawoo]

but you can buy say 20kg of sand and 20kg of gravel but which is going to fill the tank more, that might be the better question, which do you need more of to cover the tank?
To which I cant help with an answer sorry

 

[soybean]

I think a bag of gravel tends to go further than a bag of sand. So it depends how much you need. But in terms of worrying about the extra weight, I think it would make very little difference.

 

[shadow1200]

well would need at least 1 inc of sand
i have 2 inch of gravel in the tank now .
so would be fine to put sand in ? take the gravel out and put sand in ? i guess sand gets dirty more ?
what about plants ? do the survive in sand ?

 

[Owen386]

Don`t know much about sand as I litterly just made the switch last night, but as far as your weight concern your talking about a difference of a few pounds +/- between sand and gravel so you can feel comfortable with making the switch over to sand. As for it getting dirty again no personal experience but from my reading it seems like at stays cleaner as all the debri stays on top and can easy be vacuumed up in a skilled way with a siphon. Plants again from what I have read sound like they do good in sand at least for the majority of species. Hope this is somewhat help full to you I`m sure more experienced will correct anything I might be wrong about Good luck!


-Owen

 

[shadow1200]

Thanks i guess ill have to make the move then if the tank goes though the flour then ill come back here Only joking.
Sand looks so much nicer than gravel i think. Is it best to buy online or from a shop ?

 

[AstonN24vantage]

but do realize it isnt easy to clean sand... no more gravel vaccing

 

[weezawoo]

Argos play sand is great stuff to use, cheap and does the job!

 

[jmkgreen]

FWIW I am going to switch from sand to gravel. Purely based on maintenance. Having 4ft x 2ft surface area cleaning sand is a nightmare and within a week looks dirty again.

With gravel you sink the siphon right down deep and get it thoroughly clean. Much easier.

 

[BPB]

Adequate filtration and current should make things more manageable. Large fish are going to leave larger waste so that will collect if your flow rates are low. if you have smaller fish you may not notice as much. it also depends on the color of your sand. unless it is pure white, it hasn't been that bad in my experience. the 75 gallon in my signature has sand and I honestly never can see anything on it.

 

[Proxo]

I've just switched to homebase playsand (slightly darker then argos sand) about 30min ago i finished!!
Im loving it so far

I ended up using the SLIGHTEST bit more sand to the fine gravel i took out, so the difference i dont think would be too much either!

 

[Bignose]

It is actually kind of an interesting question. The final weight depends on a few different things. What is the intrinsic density (mass per volume) of the substances? I.e. if you could get a solid 1 meter cubed block of the substance, what would that weigh? Then, you've the question of the packing density. Because the gravel is larger, it won't settle down as tightly packed as the sand will. That is, there will be a larger percentage of volume that is voids in the gravel than the sand. I don't know the values of any of these numbers, so it is hard to make guesses. But as above, I suspect that the difference is pretty small. It is not like you are filling the entire tank with sand or gravel -- we're talking just an inch or so. The difference will be pretty small.

Edit: noticed you've already done it.