Sand or Gravel???

[Neuve]

¿Have you ever gone to Cancún, Yucatán. In Mexico? well, sand there is like baby powder (almost).
My Q is, If I was to get a FW tank and if i want to use sand instead of gravel. What would i need? how do you clean the substrate? do you need a HOB Filter? Can you use a regular UGF? is there a minimum capacity for a sand substrate tank? Can plants thrive on it (which ones)? can all fish live happily with a sand substrate (which ones)? I would be getting new fish for that tank so no prob bout that.

I've read people talking wonders about using sand. Sooooooo
Waddda think?

 

[William]

UGF are bad, never use them

 

[Neuve]

Why do you say that?
All i got left is HOB F? Yes?
What about my sand story lol?

 

[sweetsuvvyb]

UGFs aren't bad per se....it's just that they have a tendency to fail over time (stuff builds up under there and causes problems), and when there are better filtration options out there, if you have the choice, why not pick something that you know is more reliable. Not everyone has the choice though, and I'm of the school of thought that being educated about potential problems can get you out of a lot of bad situations.

As far as sand...I've never used it, so I can't offer too much help there...I do know that as far as cleaning, you can use a regular gravel vac, but you don't need to stick it into the sand, like you do with gravel, because all the gross stuff will mostly sit on the surface.

Good luck!

 

[Allivymar]

I use gravel in my 55g, and sand in my planted 10g. Both work fine; only difference is how I gravel vac. With the gravel, I dig into the gravel down to the bottom to get all the muck that has gathered inbetween the gravel pieces. In the sand, I hover the siphon over the sand, for 2 reasons: the muck doesn't sink into it; it lays on top and because moving it around a lot causes cloudy water.

Its not recommended for UGF filters; it falls in and clogs it.

Also, if your sand is VERY fine you may not want to use it even with an HOB. You don't want the sand in the water column as it will destroy the impeller in the filter.

 

[Scottw68TN]

I like both. The sand in my cichlid tank helps because I don't have any cleaner type fish since they would become oscar lunch its very easy to vacuum up the.... well.. er.. large detrius. The pea pebbles in my community tank look very natural and looks are a factor to me. I had a UGF and will never do that again for all the reasons stated on this board. I would like to try the moon sand in my 75 but cost prohibits this for now.

 

[Scottw68TN]

q5yt45yyyu

 

[Neuve]

So... if sand is very very fine, i cant use HOB or UGF... And then? Just an airstone? Lol.

Kewl.

Describe a simple sand-tank
How would you set it up?

 

[Allivymar]

Yeah, I'd avoid very fine sand; regular grain sand should be fine.

And theres nothing special about setting it up except:

Rinse it as you would regular gravel, just make sure its in something that won't let the sand wash away. I actually used old clean socks that didn't have mates LOL I know of other people who used old pillow cases.

When adding it, if you put it in before the water, don't dump the water in right on top of it. It will cloud up and you'll wind up rearranging it again as the water will move it around. When I do water changes, I let the water run over the palm of my hand so it doesn't stir up the sand or uncover my plant roots.

If you're going to use it for plants, theres a couple of ways to set it up. I put a layer of sand, a layer of laterite (what I used for a plant substrate) then another layer of sand. I should have used more sand tho; when I added more plants I managed to get some of the laterite on the surface. As my sand is black, and the laterite is brown, its very obvious. When I have time I'll be adding more sand to cover it.

 

[tkos]

You can use fine sand with an HOB if you put a cut up piece of sponge in the filter intake. That will help prevent grains from getting sucked into the impeller.

But never anything smaller than medium gravel with a UGF or it will just sink through the filter plate and there will be no water movement through the bed (which is the whole idea of a UGF).

 

[Neuve]

Ok, so suppose ive got sand, HOB, and preety plants.

The sponge in the filter intake, should it be like the one that we use on the HOB?
Is Laterite expensive?