Can I put sand in a freshwater chiclid tank and does algea grow on sand?

Question

I have a chidlid tank (40 gal) I want to remodel the tank and put more rocks and maybe some driftwood. I like pictures of people's tanks with white sand instead of gravel and I was wondering if I could put sand in with freshwater fish. And if I were to use sand does algea grow on sand? How do you syphon water out during water changes without making sand go everywhere. Any info on this would be great... thanks.

Answer 1

You can definitely put sand in your tank. It's a little more work to clean.
Firstly, sand can harden into a flat plaque, and it can accumulate toxic gases because there is no water flow between the sand grains. Stir up the sand with a wood chopstick on a weekly basis, or get some Malaysian Trumpet Snails - they'll do the job for you, and most fish stores will give them away.
When you syphon the water, you can just suck up some of the sand, too; then dump the water and put the sand back it. It makes for a snowstorm every week but if you don't mind that, then it's fine. Otherwise, just syphon above the sand, not actually into the sand, and stir up the sand with a chopstick before you syphon the water.

Green algae will grow on sand. Keep the sand stirred up, keep your photoperiod under 11 hours, don't overfeed, and you should not have any major algae problems.

Answer 2

Good sand is OK in a cichlid tank, just don't get super fine grade silica sand. If you are keeping African cichlids you can get crushed coral that is the consistency of sand.

Just be careful with your siphoning and get those snails that Zoe recommends, they work great for sifting sand.

Answer 3

Just a warning--carefull on the filter (if you have one) on the tank with sand. Sand can clog a filter.

Answer 4

difficult step. research from bing and yahoo. it can assist!

Answer 5

confusing point. lookup using yahoo and bing. that will might help!

Answer 6

NO!!!!