Switching from gravel to sand?

Post by **Marc van Arc** » 05 Sep 2005, 20:21

MatsP wrote: Someone mentioned kuhli loaches, and yes, they do dig tremendously in the sand, so would be great candidates for keeping the sand stirred without manual intervention.
Mats

Why take kuhlis when you have plenty of catfish which can do exactely the same?

pictus_man_77 · Post by **pictus_man_77** » 05 Sep 2005, 21:13

i think black sand is the best because it tricks the more timid cats out!!

Also, i think Corys are better than Kuhlis, but i think clown loaches are better. Saying that, i wouldnt recommend them, as they grow to a considerable length

Does anyone know if Pictus cats like sand?

catfishgrrl · Post by **catfishgrrl** » 15 Sep 2005, 09:20

Marc van Arc wrote:
Why take kuhlis when you have plenty of catfish which can do exactely the same?

My banjos do just as well if not better than my kuhlis did at keeping things stirred up. My cories are having a blast in the sand.
My clown loaches always seem to be having a blast no matter what. The black sand in my tanks has tempted out my gold nugget more.
My whiptail's and Bruno's colors are darker and more striking.
I don't know about a Pictus and sand though. I wouldn't see a problem with it.

Post by **Marc van Arc** » 15 Sep 2005, 14:56

Almost every catfish likes sand and if it's too lightly coloured, just darken the surface with large plants and/or driftwood. Or change the colour of your lights. Leave one out. There are plenty of ways to make your cats happy.
And of course it looks way better than marbles or those small pebbles with horrifying neon colours.
P. pictus too likes sand, no problem.

Post by **Dinyar** » 15 Sep 2005, 20:27

In my experience the best aquatic "earthworm" for a slightly alkaline sand tank is Moringua raitaborua (pink paddle-tailed eel). Happy in freshwater, peaceful and though long (200 mm), very skinny (~3 mm width) and low volume. One downside is that you'll never see them unless you go digging for them.

Another oddball sand sifter is the pearl shrimp. More active than the paddle-tailed eels.

snowball · Post by **snowball** » 20 Sep 2005, 16:24

I used to have a tank with a sand-pit in a quite corner for the Brochis & Corys I had at the time. It was only 1/2" to 1" deep, same depth as the gravel in the rest of the tank, so there was never any danger of it going anerobic - certainly not with all the digging the cats did! In any case I'd use the gravel cleaner syphon on it every week at a reduced rate, the cats always loved going through the freshly turned piles

I've been meaning to do it again in my current tank, I've just been waiting to go to my favourite hardware store where they have bags of river sand for building which happens to be the perfect grade for freshwater tanks.

Maxmillion · Post by **Maxmillion** » 25 Sep 2005, 23:37

Hi all, anyone have some pics of their tanks with sand, hoping this might get me more motivated to switch over my substrate. I was even thinking of slowly over time taking cups of gravel out, and then replacing with sand from one side to the other.

sidguppy · Post by **sidguppy** » 26 Sep 2005, 00:24

I wish those eels would turn up here.....the weirder the better!

But I can say, safely; despite me keeping fish for 31 years and visiting many stores in 3 countries and being able to check importlists on occasion: this fish has NEVER showed up in this corner of Europe allright.

must be one of those strict "all goes to US-Japan" fish, of wich we can only dream

Post by **Dinyar** » 26 Sep 2005, 04:58

sidguppy wrote:must be one of those strict "all goes to US-Japan" fish, of wich we can only dream

They apparently make it to Germany. See http://www.aqualog.de/site/latest%20pic ... ewsUK.html

sidguppy · Post by **sidguppy** » 26 Sep 2005, 08:17

GREAT!

can't wait to pick up a few in one of the better stores like Bleccha or so; this is a truly nice fish, weird as anything

tnx

Martin S · Post by **Martin S** » 27 Sep 2005, 11:08

Hi
Just to add my 2 penneth worth - I had a large 5'x2.5'x2' with a sand base and I found that the best sand was the stuff used in swimming pool filters. Went to the local Pool showroom and then sell large sacks of it. It is a larger grain than real (beach) sand, but course enough to not pack down and is an ideal substrate for cats. As far as I could ever tell it never affected my ph/hardness.
HTH
Martin

snowball · Post by **snowball** » 28 Sep 2005, 02:56

well this thread has inspired me to replace much of the gravel in my display tank with sand, so yesterday I went to the local hardware / building supplies center and picked up a couple of bags of sand.

There were a few different sorts - mostly 'brickie's sand' in white, yellow and red shades, but they also had bags of 'river sand', also refered to as 'Nepean' as that is the nearby river it is dredged from. I went for the river sand as I felt it would be more natural so to speak, as the brickie's sand can have a very high silica content and has undergone much more processing to obtain a consistant colour and size which I suspect will make it more prone to packing. The river sand is also a much more natural colour.

However the river sand is not washed at all and had a fair bit of clay & organic detritus in it that required thorough washing, not to mention grading to remove the coarse rocks (mostly shale) from it. First I put it through a 4mm sieve that got the worst out, then the rest was gently shaken through a regular fish net held in a bucket of water that allowed the fine sand to drop through. The resulting sand was then rinsed several times to remove the suspended particles that clouded the water. You can see the resulting grades in the pics below - the shale gravel is very rough and would clearly risk damaging catfish barbles so it had to be removed. click on thumbs to enlarge

That's as far as I got yesterday, I wanted to let the good sand soak for a day or so to help leach out anything that may still be in it, though in past experience this particular sand doesn't affect the water paramaters. I plan to add the sand to the tank in stages when I do water changes, by simply syphoning the gravel out with a big hose and carefully adding the sand as best not to cause clouding - we'll see how that goes!

catfishgrrl · Post by **catfishgrrl** » 03 Oct 2005, 20:23

My cats (and other fish) really enjoy the new set-ups.
I added some river stones and sprinkled in some gravel around the corners.
My plants look like crap though...snails

Here are some recent pics (should've cleaned the glass):

snowball · Post by **snowball** » 05 Oct 2005, 01:57

nice tank catfishgrrl, the fish show their colours nicely with the black sand.

I added a few sandpits to my tank over the weekend, one up each end of the for now but when I replace the tank I plan to used mostly sand with some pebbles along the front to take the brunt of the water flow.

The small corys seem to enjoy the sand the most, one of the panda's was in it before I'd even finished tipping it out! The Brochis initially appeared to avoid it (possibly it was too cold when added?), but now rest happily on it most of the time.

A small jurupari that I 'rescued' from a bare bottom tank in the LFS is beside itself with joy at being able to rummage through and even some of the mid-water rasboras came down to graze over the surface of the sand.

Switching from gravel to sand?

Re: gravel to sand swtich

Re: gravel to sand swtich