merry xmas to me!

[joel618]

My mother in law for me 2 bags of cichlid sand for xmas. A few questions...
1. Can I add the sand along with the water in the bag or should I rinse it?

2. Because it buffers the water should I add it over a weeks time?

3. How many more bags do I need for my standard 4ft 75gal? I was thinking 4 bags in total, which would be 80lbs.

My healer was feeling left out so I included him in the pic. Lol

 

[joel618]

just realized i put this is cichlid discussion...

 

[joel618]

Anyone had any experience with this? The back of the bag says to add it slowly over 3 weeks and not to exceed 1inch of fish per 5 gallons of water for that time. The substrate I already have in there is argonite mix so they should already be used to the buffering effect right? Also i want to keep some of the old substrate in panty hose in the tank to seed it. What type of panty hose should I use?

Im wanting to make this switch tonight so any advice at all would be much appreciated.

 

[garfy]

You should definately wash it and this could take a few hours.Use a bucket and a quarter fill it with sand.Fill to 3/4 with water and move the sand around with your hands.When the water has coloured up pour out the water.Repeat until the water stays clean.You'll be surprised how much cleaning it will take.

 

[joel618]

Kk thanx for the reply! I just wasn't sure about rinsing bc it's supposed to have bb already in the sand or something. Wasn't sure if that was a fluke or not. Guess I could prime the rinsing water...

 

[Closetcanibal]

You should definately wash it and this could take a few hours.Use a bucket and a quarter fill it with sand.Fill to 3/4 with water and move the sand around with your hands.When the water has coloured up pour out the water.Repeat until the water stays clean.You'll be surprised how much cleaning it will take.

another great way use a garden hose and a 5 gallon bucket. Pour in 1 bag of sand into the bucket, turn the hose on pretty good(should turn and agitate the sand) and let the bucket overflow for about 15-20 minutes, still agitate by hand , but helps out the process.