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Bob, I agree with you, and thus is why I stated in the first line of my original post in this thread;

As for the sand, depending on your fish stock, is how I would decide the sand.

Now, I hate to get off subject of a thread, but since you have brought this up, some people may get confused about it, so I will further explain it. First of all, there are three ways to measure hardness in water dH being the most common one used, as it is inclusive of the other two different measurements of kH and GH.

Kh is the measurement of the carbonate hardness, or the measurement of calcium and magnesium in the water. This is the reason to use buffers (calcium and magnesium based things added to the water, that will slowly leach calcium and magnesium), because this type of hardness is only temporary, and can become soft quite quickly in some situations. These bicarbonates are broken down by the creatures living in the tank, as well as by the decomposition of detris and such, and thus the minerals that were once part of the bicarbonates are no longer there, the water becomes softer. The importance of these is that they help to stabalize the ph of the water. They do this by storing carbon dioxied (CO2), and thus help in stablizing the acid/alkalinity balance of the water. Thus the importance of this specific measurement of the water. When these measurements drop too low, the ph of the water can fluctuate tremendously up and down. As much as several whole points on the scale, in a course of only one day. This can be devistating to fish, in the form of ph burns, and most likely death!

GH, also known as general hardnes, is the measurements of the sum total of sulfates, carbonates, bicarbonates, nitrates and chlorides of calcium, magnesium, barium and strontium. These do not help much in the control of the ph of the water. But, depending on the fish, may or may not be needed in large or small quantities for breeding, as well as just for living. ex; A fish taken from an environment of very hard water, will become nutritionally deficient in very low levels of these minerals. As for breeding, fish eggs that are normally developed in soft water (lacking most of these minerals), will become too hard (related to the shells of the eggs) to hatch, and thus the eggs laid will never hatch. This is why it is hard to breed most SA fish in NA water, because they are from very soft waters, while most NA water is very-extremely hard. Thus comes into use, the RO systems, to remove most all of these minerals.

dH is the more widely used method because it can be applied to either of the other two. And usually this is the measurements you see listed as the hardness of the water, if not specified. As for most aquarium fishes, or your average aquarium fishes, this measurement is all that is needed. However, this measurement is not good to use when needing specifics of extremes for caring and keeping of some fishes.

If the gH and kH of the tank is high, say 6 degrees, would you recommend coral as a substrate?

Now to answer your question Bob, let me first say that a reading of 6 kH or GH, I consider to be soft, or at the highest moderately soft, and not hard at all. As compared to the rift lake cichlids of Africa that are considered high to very high measurements of 18-25, or even higher in some cases. As a discus breeder, it surprises me that you include these two in the same measurement. As most discus breeders actually try to keep the kH low to keep the ph low as well, while keeping the GH moderately elevated. The RO devices remove most all hardness of water, but then you add "trace elements" and such back to the water, for the health of the fish. By adding these trace elements, I am speaking of things like RO-Vital http://www.aquasurge.co.uk/ro_vital.html for example and others. Now, as explained about the kH earlier, this is the reason so many discus breeders do water changes daily, or close to daily and as often as possible, because the water ph can become unstable very quickly in just such an environment. So to answer your question, it would depend on how long I was going to wait to do water changes.

Sorry for the long post, just don't want anyone confused.







Last edited by ACIDRAIN at 15-Nov-2004 11:43

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There is always a bigger fish...

Acid,

I would prefer to know the water parameters before I recommend a substrate to modify them. If the gH and kH of the tank is high, say 6 degrees, would you recommend coral as a substrate?

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

As for the sand, depending on your fish stock, is how I would decide the sand. As some sand is inert, and thus good for neutral to low ph tanks, as they will not effect your ph in any way. While a coral based sand is good for higher ph type tanks, like rift lake cichlid tanks. The calcium and magnesium in the coral based sand, will leach out and help buffer the higher ph, to keep it elevated. As for how much, I would recomend about 40 lbs for a 55 gal tank.

As for the plants, there are many that do very good under NO (Normal Output) lighting. And will grow to your decorations. Bolibitus, Anubius, Java fern, Java moss, ect.

As for anaerobic areas, with this little amount of sand, you should not have any problems with it. If you are really concerned though, just get sand that is of a larger size. This will allow more circulation to enter the sand, and thus not allow the growth of the anaerobic bacteria. The other thing, again it goes by the type of fish you are going to keep, the fish may be those kind that dig in the sand, or sift through the sand, and this would also prevent the anaerobic bacteria from accumulating. There are many fish you can get that will go in almost any setup, that will keep the sand "stirred" up.

HTH.....

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There is always a bigger fish...

Jenn,

You are going to need about 2 pounds of sand per gallon or about 110 pounds. White play sand is fine but be sure to wash it thoroughly. If you prefer black sand consider Eco Complete by Carib Sea. The product comes washed, no washing required, and is supposedly bio-active. I guess that means less cycling time for the tank.

I have the product in a small planted tank and I have been very happy with it.

Last edited by Bob Wesolowski at 15-Nov-2004 10:13

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

Not sure I can answer the how many bags question so I'll leave that for someone else.

As for the plants. Consider your lighting for a moment. If you're planning on upgrading then you could possibly go with some of the more hardy plants. The biggest issue with sand is that it tends to crush alot of plants roots. Plants that can be tied to driftwood (java fern) will do just fine however since they don't actually go in the substrate.

No you don't have to have MTS, but you must sift thru the sand somehow. Many of us just find it much more amusing and easy to have these cute little guys.

As with all sand, make sure you rinse it very very well.

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