Substrate

[Myka]

What's a good substrate (size and type) for a community tank with fake plants?
How about a cichlid tank?
A planted tank?

How do you figure out how much to buy to get the desired depth (which is how deep anyway?)?

Thanks!

 

[Wizzard~Of~Ozz]

That's is a lot of questions, There is a sticky in the planted forum for this subject that covers a lot of it.

 

[theotheragentm]

Pool filter sand will work well with fake plants or real plants. It's really cheap too, $10 for a 50 lb. bag. That will do a standard 55 gallon tank nicely. As far as depth goes, I go about 1.5" deep. You you may need to have some sort of snail to dig around the substrate as gases can get trapped under fine substrate like sand.

 

[Myka]

I fine sand is unsightly as the detritus sits on top. I would rather have gravel that I can vacuum on water changes to remove the detritus.

 

[bs6749]

Pool filter sand is a lot heavier than normal sand and only the very smallest particles will get sucked up when siphoning. This is a good thing too because these are the particles that cloud the water when stirred up.

 

[Myka]

But between waterchanges the detritus still sits on top of the sand doesn't it? Gravel allows the detritus to fall into it where it isn't seen.

 

[bs6749]

Sand keeping the waste on top is a good thing IMO because it makes it that much easier to clean up instead of having to "deep vac" the gravel. Takes a lot less time too. Plus, some waste would actually be beneficial in a planted tank (which I have).

 

[Wizzard~Of~Ozz]

I found Turface to be a very good choice, With a price in CAD of 14$/50lbs it is a good price aswell. It's a gravel that is very good for planted tanks, but is also a gravel so there is no rush (and you can save the expense of Eco. or Flourite.

75lbs did my 120Gal (8sq feet) to a depth of 3".. so 1 bag would be more then enough.

Might not be good for Chiclids tho, it has a low PH. For Chiclids, you could mix in some Seachem Onyx which has a natural PH of 9 to buffer it up.

 

[theotheragentm]

If you have larger fish, the waste will be more apparent. In my tank where my largest fish is a 4" Gourami, I don't notice the waste at all.

 

[Fishyfanatic]

I use PFS in all of our tanks. I personally prefer to see the fish waste so I know where to vac. It doesn't get trapped in the gravel so I can't find it. In our 150 gal tank we have the flow positioned so the waste gets pushed into one area of the tank in the back corner. At the end of the week we just suck it all out. Undergravel jets are great for this.

In the community tanks I can't even see fish waste sitting on the sand. In fact, I thought my fish didn't poo for a while.