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Hi, i was wondering on which to have on the botton of my tank as i'm bored with gravel. Is sand or any other methods avaliable or not. I have got 2 pl*cos (one is 8"), pictus, 4 other catfish but dont know the names, 3 clown loach and 6 tinfoil barbs in the tank. I'm also using a fluval 305 external filter, and one air stone.

any help would be great.

hi mate, you can get sand from ur lfs. or you could try having the tank bare bottom, it's wot ever you like.

Kev

I use mainly sand.
BTW, argos's play pit sand is sterile, non-toxic and does
not alter the pH.. apart from that it is also less expensive.

Cheers guys i'll sand but just worried incase it might clog my filter

just worried incase it might clog my filter

Just make sure your filter intake is about 4" off the substrate, and you shouldn't have any problems.

Ive just removed fout 10lt buckets of sand from my display tank leaving a 1cm thick layer on the bottom. I have also removed all my plants and most of the bogwood, all in preperation for two.......... Potamotrygon Motoro

Unfortunatly I put all the sand on my lawn to fill in Kid/Dog holes

Tom

How would i clean the sand as well. will all of my fish be happy with and it wont hurt any of them would it?

Any dirt that accumulates in the tank will just sit on top of the sand making it easy to remove. You will however need to disturb the sand in order to prevent gases building up.

Just one other comment. I've used playpit sand before but found that it compacted together a lot. I've always found silica sand doesn't do this. In one of my tanks at the moment i have a mixture of sand and gravel, about 60:40, which gives a nice look to the tank and doesn't seem to cause the sand to compact the same.

Gordon

In one of my tanks at the moment i have a mixture of sand and gravel, about 60:40, which gives a nice look to the tank

I agree. I think this gives a really good efect.

How would i clean the sand as well. will all of my fish be happy with and it wont hurt any of them would it?

With sand, you will only need 1cm at the most. Your fish will disturb for you, or just use your fingers.

Any more than 1cm and you risk the sand going stagnant.

When you siphon dirt out, you will always pick up some sand. Just add this back to the tank after your water change. The sand and dirt will seperate when you swirl the bucket.

Obviously, the depth at which the sand is frequently "disturbed" depends on the species of fish you keep. There are several fish that will dig quite deep into sand, others will not..

Most cory's will go down to the eyes or thereabouts, so that's around 1cm/0.5", and that will probably cause enough disturbance to leave it another little bit deeper.

Larger geopagines will dig a lot deeper, and you can quite easily have 3-4cm/1.5" deep sand with them and not have any problems...

I agree that a mix of sand and gravel makes a nice effect, with some larger stones thrown in for good measure... I'm definitely going with sand when I move the tank...

--
Mats

yeah the sand and gravel sound good, will have to try it out.

i have an 8" gibby pl*co, 1 pictus, three other catfish but dont know the names, 3 clown loach, 6 tinfoil barbs and a red tailed shark