Sand pit for loaches?

[TheAmlinals]

That's the thing, won't my loaches be thrashing around in it? I just picture them going crazy, being all "finally! Sand! Oooo ahhh that's the stuff!" Lol.

 

[phin]

the amount of sand that will be stirred up by your loaches will not matter. My cichlids are constantly moving sand around. You don't need to worry about a little sand floating through the water. What will hurt your filter is if you can't see your filter intake because you have so much sand in your water. To put it another way: If your water is murky because of sand, it will hurt your filter.

Your fish and the normal current of your tank will move sand. Sand will float through your water. This amount of sand is relatively small and will not break your filter.

Turn your filter off during water changes and give it a bit to let the sand settle that was stirred up and you will be fine.

 

[TheAmlinals]

Ok. Thanks everybody. I probably will end up changing my next upgrade tank to sand then.
But just out of curiosity, are there other softer or more rounded-edged substrate options like I mentioned? Maybe I could try one of them out in this tank in the meantime.

 

[TheAmlinals]

Ok. Thanks everybody. I probably will end up changing my next upgrade tank to sand then.
But just out of curiosity, are there other softer or more rounded-edged substrate options like I mentioned? Maybe I could try one of them out in this tank in the meantime.

And by that I mean like I mentioned a few pages ago, something more like soil, or something more like gravel, but rounded and maybe lighter, like little balls or something, that the loaches might be able to squiggle and play through.

 

[phin]

I think what you want is sand.

 

[TheAmlinals]

I think what you want is sand.

I understand, and I agreed.
What I was asking, is if other softer things do exist. Surely there are other things, more than two options (gravel or sand), that people CAN put on the bottoms of tanks...?

 

[phin]

I understand, and I agreed.
What I was asking, is if other softer things do exist. Surely there are other things, more than two options (gravel or sand), that people CAN put on the bottoms of tanks...?

Well, yeah, but you want something with round edges in a small diameter for your loaches. Most of the specialized substrate is for specific uses like plant substrate, aragonite substrate, etc. Coral or aragonite doesn't fit your criteria as it is jagged and definitely not what you want. Any plant substrates you might look at are pretty impractical from a cost perspective just to "try out for the mean time". You could try soil, but soil is a sand/clay/organic matter and that doesn't sound practical to place in a already filled tank. If you are going to do that, why don't you just do sand?

You have options with sand Pool filter sand, play sand, seachem flourite sand, silica sand (sand blasting), powdered iron slag (sand blasting), tahitian moon sand (expensive, not from the moon).

If you want to give your loaches a sandy area, I would suggest you find the area of your tank you want to change to sand, remove everything from that area temporarily, scoop out the gravel in that area and/push the gravel over to the other side of the tank that you are not changing to sand, (optional: find some marble to golfball sized rocks to make a divider, placed along the gravel-sand border, on the bottom glass), take a 2" PVC aimed toward the bottom of your tank where you want the sand to go and pour cleaned and rinsed sand down the pvc, moving the pvc to fill in the empty areas where you want sand.

Edit: I should have specified that the instructions above would be with a full tank of water, so without emptying your tank.

 

[Kimlafeiet]

I have looked for a suitable "gravel" for my loaches as well, but came up emptly handed. Anything smaller than pea gravel was too sharp, and gravel (even small smooth pea gravel) is just too big and heavy for them to burrow in. I have smooth black gravel rocks in my larger tank and the loaches did fine with it, but they were unable to burrow. they tried, but it was just too heavy (dojo loaches). I now have them in a tank with pool filter sand, and they love it. I usually find them burried in it with only thier heads sticking out. Lol

 

[Kimlafeiet]

I was totally apprehensive to try sand, as I was worried about all the things you have mentioned, but I think that is probably a normal concern. I am a big "gravel vaccumer", so I was worried about how I would keep a tank clean with sand, as my fish are pigs and the gravel is always full of crap (so to speak).
I will say, I am so glad I gave it a chance. My loaches LOVE it, it has not caused any prroblems with my filter, and it stays fairly clean. I just hover the siphon over the sand and it sucks up the crud, I have even put the siphon into the sand slightly, and it stirs it around and falls right back down with no problems. My only regret is that I used a light colored sand. I had debated between tahitian moon sand (black) and pool filter sand, and went with the pfs because of price difference, but the white sand washes out the colors of my fish. My golden dojos look paler with the light substrate, where they were so mcuh brighter in the dark gravel tank. not a biggie, but if I could do it again, I would pay the extra money and go with the black sand.

 

[TheAmlinals]

Aw, see, I want to see my guys all happy and having fun like that, playing peekaboo. Lol.

Just out of curiosity again, regardless of price and practicality, is there any brand of sand that you don't have to rinse forever first? Like that you could basically just add straight from the bag?

(Explanation: I have a really old sensitive septic system, and its a really wet time of year here, with melting snow and/or rain, plus we're in dense clay soil here, so its really not good timing for running a lot of water down my drain, as things can get backed up as it is with laundry and showers and whatnot, but its also too cold to be running the hose outside yet too.)

 

[phin]

Aw, see, I want to see my guys all happy and having fun like that, playing peekaboo. Lol.

Just out of curiosity again, regardless of price and practicality, is there any brand of sand that you don't have to rinse forever first? Like that you could basically just add straight from the bag?

(Explanation: I have a really old sensitive septic system, and its a really wet time of year here, with melting snow and/or rain, plus we're in dense clay soil here, so its really not good timing for running a lot of water down my drain, as things can get backed up as it is with laundry and showers and whatnot, but its also too cold to be running the hose outside yet too.)

There might be something that you only have to rinse minimally. But rinsing sand is pretty standard, and the better you rinse it the less it will cloud your tank and the sooner it will settle.

If you really can't get outside, I'm sure you could devise something. perhaps a large 90 gallon garbage bin & 5 gallon buckets. you could probably figure out way to rinse it that way and then pump the water (or carry it out by the bucket full) outside.

 

[Bigfish99]

I live in cleveland and switched to sand in january. It was cold, but not terrible since pool filter sand is a pretty clean material comparitively speaking. I would put my vote in for that. Like $8 for a 50 pound bag at leslies pool supply (if you have one of those).

 

[Tetra1990]

I used the big named brand sand from petsmart. I paid a fortune for it! If I could redo it, I would go buy regular pool filter sand. It's very cheap compared to the big named aquarium sand.

 

[sbland26]

Thanks for all the info everyone! Did it today. Water is a bit cloudy still. Would u recommend leaving the filter off or what you think? Here's what it looks like...

 

[phin]

If you haven't turned your filter back on yet, go ahead.

I like the sand pit.

 

[sbland26]

I ended up doing it last night. And thanks!

 

[sbland26]

Also I don't think the silly things even realize its there. They just have been swimming all around doing their crazy flips lol

 

[sbland26]

I don't know what it is but they still haven't got into the sand. It's like they don't understand they can burrow in it lol

 

[Magicmarymac]

I don't know what it is but they still haven't got into the sand. It's like they don't understand they can burrow in it lol

It took my cory a while, but now they love it so much that I'm switching the whole tank to sand!

 

[StripedBandit]

This is an interesting idea. If I put a sand pit in my tank, would the striata botias enjoy it? I also have some Bolivian rams...I assume they'll pick through it as well.