Lighting and Sand

[Xabien]

Hello again
I have a 30 gallon tank. At the moment it has 2 18Watt flourecent lights on the hood which came with it. (its the Juwel Rio 125). I was in my local LFS and saw a tank which had blue lighting. Would I be able to have that in my tank? Wil it affect plant growth or fish?

My second question is about substrate. Currently I have standard gravel in my tank. I saw a freshwater tank with sand in the bottom the other day and thought it looked good. Is this hard to clean? Are there any problems with it? Also, if I decided to change, how would I get teh old gravel out and the new sand in?

Thanks

 

[e-cat]

the blue light was probably blue antic lighting or a aqua-glow marine glow floresent bulb, i dont think it will hurt fresh water, might give you more algae. sands not hard too clean you just have too syphon over it and make sure you dont suck it all out of your tank, i guess the problem with sand in a FW tank is that there is a better chance of nothing moving threw the sand and the sand not being siffted so let out the gases. i guess you would have too start taking out the old and in with the new, mabey some one who has changed substrate wil read this and help you more.

 

[guppylove]

i have got sand in my tank all i did when i put it in was take 50% of the water out then got the gravel out and then put the sand in. (i did take the fish out) i dont know if that if the way to do it but it worked for me.

 

[Terry]

Hiya Xabien

e-cat is right, blue light is actinic. With actinic lighting it is usually used on marine tanks and african set-ups. I do know some people that use them for catfish tanks. I am not an expert on lighting but i do think that they are not very good for plant growth, but they will bring out the colours in fish.
As for changing your gravel to sand, there are a couple of ways you can do this. Firstly what guppylove said or you could put a gravel tidy in your tank. what that does is lay ontop of your gravel that you have already in there and you place the sand on top. Your lfs could tell you more about that. IMO it might be better to remove you old gravel and replace it with sand. Ask questions at your lfs that's what there their for.