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This Christmas we're planning on purchasing a 75gl so the guys in the 55gl have a little more room. Our lfs has several tanks set up with sand instead of gravel. They are beautiful. What do I need to do? Can I purchase the sand @ Wal-mart? What is the technique for setting up and cleaning? Are most fish compatable with this?

Barb

A number of things....

Some fish really prefer sand to gravel, corys and loaches come to mind.

Sand must be rinsed very well (more so than gravel) prior to placement in the tank. It's best to do outside, and the middle of winter might not be the best time. The sand must be stirred and rinsed stirred and rinsed stirred and rinsed till the water runs completely clear. You can buy tank sand @ your LFS, hardware store, landscaping shop, or wlmrt. You can use play sand, pool filter sand, or some landscaping sand as well. Depending on what fish you have you may want to check that it won't raise your ph by testing as if it were a rock.

Sand requires a bit of extra care to prevent the development of anerobic bacteria which is poisonous to fish. Regular maintence is done by gently skimming the surface of the sand with a gravel vac. I've found that adding a submersible powerhead (make sure your intakes on filter and powerhead are covered) will help keep the waste from settleing on the substrate.
After cleaning the surface of the sand, slowly running your hand, a hair pic, stick, or anything thru the sand to gently stir the sand will release any pockets that may turn anerobic. You can also add malasyian trumpet snails which will burrow in the sand and do the work for you .Then carefully add your water back into the tank. The important thing with sand is to not kick it up in the water too much as it is very possible to damage the impeller of your filter.....believe me
HTH a bit .

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Sounds like a lot of work! The three tanks I have now seem to take it out of me. We're really starting to get hooked on this "hobby". Started out "lets buy a fish tank", and now we're up to three tanks and wanting to buy another! I'll pass this info onto hubby and see what he thinks. Live in Charleston, SC, so winters are not too awful bad. lol

Barb

Even if winters not that bad you might not want to be washing sand outside. Then again if you have a nice sized bathroom it might not be too hard .

Of the tanks I have, one has sand, it's really not all that much more maintnence, in fact it might be easier than the others. I'm really glad I switched it to sand, only drawback is that most plants dont' do well in a sand substrate.

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I guess if you're going to go all out... then go all out. The sandy bottoms are pretty. Probably will try it. I printed out your instructions for when the time comes. Thanks!

Barb

heres a tip, when i changed to sand i rinsed and soaked the sand about a million times... i just soaked it and stirred and changed the water until it wasnt cloudy at any more, it took a couple hours but then the sand didnt cloud the water with sediment. If you dont rinse the sand well enough there will be sediment clouding the water for days

Awesome! I've had this question for a while, too... I love the look of white sand! My only question is... what would you rinse the sand through? Wouldnt it be so coarse that it would just fall through...? And the siphoning-- doesn't msot of the bad-fish-stuff come down to the bottom? I just know when I siphon my gravel, I had to put it allll the way down, because there's so much junk... and I know if I did that with sand, it would get sucked up.. I've really been planning on asking this question, really!

LOL, the muck collects ON TOP of the sand, so you kind of hover your vac over it Also, because it collects on top, the filter is able to get more of it

For animals, the entire universe has been neatly divided into things to (a) mate with, (b) eat, (c) run away from, and (d) rocks. - Terry Pratchett

smantzer as for the rinsing.....what you do is place it in a bucket, add water stir it up, carefully pour the water (with the sand dust that you do NOT want in the tank) out, then do it again like devon7 said, about a million times. And Callatya has it right, the waste cannot sink thru the sand so it remains on top, when combined with a powerhead the water will move more allowing the filter to capture more of the wast so it doesn't settle on the substrate. You just have to have the powerhead positioned right and the sand washed well enough that it doesn't jam your filter.

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Oh wow! That sounds great! So I assume, maintenance for sand is as follows:

Clean/change filter cartridges often so the muck doesn't clog it
Stir it occassionally or get malaysian trumpet snails to burrow
Suck up fishy poo as it appears on the sand

Right?

how often do you ahve to stir up the sand? just with your weekly water change? is it just the surface of do u have to try to move the sand thats deeper aswell?

also if i get MTS that mean theyll do the stirring for me?

if you dont want a high pH dont get pool filter sand coz im told it increases pH and hardness... duno abt any of the other types of sand tho!

I have sand and pebbles combined - the poo and waste does stay on the top. I tend to do a light vaccum when I change my water weekly (small change). The thing is you can never keep it 100% pristine... I have cories though and they do a fantastic job hoovering over the top - they occasionally do a dive into the sand to chase some tasty morsel???

Clean/change filter cartridges often so the muck doesn't clog it

Close. Too much filter maintence of course will kill off alot of your biofilter. IMO it's important to have plenty of filtration on a sand tank, @least 7X if not 10X. And to also only gently rinse the sponges/floss.

Stir it occassionally or get malaysian trumpet snails to burrow

Yep. I stirr after doing a surface vac, make sure you go all the way to the bottom. I use my hand, I've heard of people using hair pics to rake thru it.

Suck up fishy poo as it appears on the sand

Yep again. I do it weekly or so. I really don't get much, but I don't have heavy waste producers like plecos.

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thread is a few days old but thought i would jump in. i have a 75g tank with 40 lbs ( about 2 inches ) of black moon sand. Sand is GREAT. brings out the colors in fish so much better and there are alot of fish that love to play in it like babel said. as far as the sand itself goes babel has got it coverd. just wanted to add some pointers about cleaning and about the snails. as far as rinsing the sand its best to use a tote or something simialr, long and wide. also bigger is better, the more you can wash at once the less time you spend doing it. 40 lbs took me a while to wash but i couldnt imagin doing it in a 5g bucket hehe.
about the snails babel mentioned (MTS) malaysian trumpet snails. i have these in my sandy tank and they are GREAT sifters. they stay in the sand all day sifting and come out at night and clean up. what you really need to know before you run out and get a handful of these guys. they are the snails version of guppies x10. it only takes one to make more and they do it often. the more algae/food left in the tank the more snails there will be. not many fish that eat snails can do anything about them cuz thier shells are so hard, makes for good snails in a cichlid tank. some fish do know how to get them out of thier shell like yellow labs. they also dont hurt live plants.
anyway sand is a great idea, MTS are a great idea. everything else babel put you on the right road

A problem with snails is that, although they are scavengers and do a great job of turning over your substrate, they will significantly increase the bioload in your aquarium.

However, when you are tired of the snails, they will give you a great excuse to buy those loaches that you always wanted!

__________
"To steal ideas from one person is plagiarism; to steal from many is research."
researched from Steven Wright

I had no trouble rinsing 20lbs of sand in 1-2g buckets inside. Now that I have gravel in 1 tank I think the sand is less work. The fish also like gravel less and cleaned away a section under the cave where my yoyo loaches and pleco lay. Think the cichlids did it but sand is hard to get here. All the stores have is argonite which raises ph and when I used playsand I had the most awful brown algae. White sand may look cool but I'll never use a light sand again.. It shows up every fish poo and spot of algae in the tank. Definitely don't try it with a pleco unless you vacuum daily. Sand may just be less work for me cause my 2 tanks with sand are filled with plants, clams, and baby applesnails. Stirring it just digs up all the roots and clams.