To start off, I ended up getting rid of the sand substrate for now and have a bare bottom with big river rocks scattered about. (it does make everything easier to clean).
I don't know if there is another type of sand I should use. However you can see in this image below the substrate there are bands of black (which from my understanding searching online is likely anaerobic bacteria that thrives in oxygen deprived environments. When I would sift the sand between weekly partial water changes to get waste out it would stink something fierce to say the least. However I've seen plenty of people use sand who don't have this issue and it sprang up fast. Like within 2 weeks of adding the sand. I have 2 razorback musk turtles in the tank (and "had" ghost shrimp before the turtles eventually ate them). The sand I was using was exo-terra riverbed sand it was EXTREMELY fine grained and packed. So I am wondering if a larger grained sand would work better.
I don't know if there is another type of sand I should use. However you can see in this image below the substrate there are bands of black (which from my understanding searching online is likely anaerobic bacteria that thrives in oxygen deprived environments. When I would sift the sand between weekly partial water changes to get waste out it would stink something fierce to say the least. However I've seen plenty of people use sand who don't have this issue and it sprang up fast. Like within 2 weeks of adding the sand. I have 2 razorback musk turtles in the tank (and "had" ghost shrimp before the turtles eventually ate them). The sand I was using was exo-terra riverbed sand it was EXTREMELY fine grained and packed. So I am wondering if a larger grained sand would work better.
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