I have angelfish, silver dollars, neon tetras, and a female beta. will they enjoy the sand or stick to gravel? Is it hard to maintain? I've heard it gets cloudy.
2007-01-14 15:57:06 · 8 answers · asked by Anonymous in Pets ➔ Fish
It is really up to what you prefer and what kind of look to go for. I like both... My 55 gallon is done in natural brown gravel and is planted.
With sand, you will need to rinse it really well so it doesnt make your tank cloudy. You will need a bucket and preferably do this outside. Put in a little bit of sand (4 or so inches) in the bucket and fill with water from the hose... swish it around then dumo it out.... continue this until the water in the bucket is clear and the sand settles in a few seconds. The clearer you can get it, the clearer your tank will be. (this does take a while...).
2007-01-14 16:15:07 · answer #1 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
I bought play sand at home depot(make sure it says playsand and not concret sand!!!), it's $5 for a 55 lb bag(it's presterilized and sifted and saves you about 80% if you buy from a petstore!!!) I put it into a 5 gallon bucket and put the hose in it until the water ran clear(I did this outside and before the 4 feet of snow...) If you use a gravel syphon to clean the tank the sand will all get sucked in. So I stir up the sand by hand and then do my partial water changes. I like the way it looks and I think the fish liek it too!
2007-01-14 16:37:18 · answer #2 · answered by pharfly1 5 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Do you have a filter? Also - the sand was probably clean - but not aquarium clean. You need to clean it really really really well. Put it in a bowl 1/4 and then fill the bowl all the rest of the way with water -- then swirl the water around and wait 10 seconds. Then pour out the water. You might have to do this A LOT of times (took sand from the quary and it took me about 50 times -- but yours shouldn't take that long). As long as there is any sand rising while you swirl your hands in the water (not touching the sand) then it needs to be cleaned bcause your fish will also bring up that much sand. Good luck =)
2016-05-24 03:49:00 · answer #3 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
the smaller and more densly packed the substrate, the more bacterial build up you get. I'd stick to rocks that are abour as big around as a marble Actually, in my tanks, 2 ten gallons and 1 29 gallon(so far), I have rocks of 1 " or bigger, it gives the smaller fish soemwhere to hide and the bacteria doesn't build up. Right now I have about 150 guppies of various ages and sizes all together, and a pleco in each tank. They all seem to be doing just fine, even though there are far too many for the amount of water .
2007-01-14 19:17:19 · answer #4 · answered by judy_r8 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
i use silica sand it works pretty good i just dump the bag in the tank and fill it up it might get a little cloudy but if u have a good filter it should be clear the next day ive used it in most of my tanks from my discus, to my cichlids u can buy it from menards, so im sure home depot or any other large hardware store will have it, it looks really nice to
2007-01-14 18:19:15 · answer #5 · answered by krazybone_2000_2000 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Use silica sand with an under sand filter. The light color of the sand makes the colors on the fish stand out more and the fine texture is great for planting water plants.
2007-01-14 22:15:37 · answer #6 · answered by Studly Jim 3 · 0⤊ 1⤋
sand from the beach
its free o.o
2007-01-14 16:23:48 · answer #7 · answered by sonya3091 3 · 0⤊ 1⤋
dont use sand. use rocks.
2007-01-14 16:32:04 · answer #8 · answered by meeker the gypsy 2 · 0⤊ 1⤋