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I have had the best luck with the Aqueon HOB filters for sand tanks, and the Aqua Clear seems to have withstood the sand as well. I did burn up a marineland filter and a walmart filter fast with the sand.
Also you might want to turn it off if you are adding water / moving things as to not suck up the sand.
I guess I'll be the voice of opposition. I don't really like the Aqueon Quiet Flow design. It works great as a mechanical filter, but does not have much surface area or a place to put any media to grow the BB for your biofilter. I like the AquaClears for that reason. Lots of room to add whatever you want. I run an AC 50 on my 29. I run it with a sponge prefilter to keep any leaves or sand from getting into the motor (not to mention any small fish).
Aqueon, and I would put two filter pads in the slot, that will allow the maximum for BB. I always do that with mine and it has been great, I can always pull one out and use it to start a new tank!!!
this is home depot construction sand It looks pretty nice but I was always feeling like I was gonna go crazy because of the plant specks and poo. Once I got black sand, I had to get rid of it because the gravel vac would get little particles caught in the blue plastic ring and drop little grains of black sand into the nice white sand. I couldn't stand it and changed it.
Changed it to sand blasting sand, made from real Garnets and it was a fun color. It was $18. for 50 pounds from a sand blasting supply warehouse. Very clean too because it is used as a sand blasting abrasive. They have different colors of sand made from different materials. Like this is the Garnet sand
Light can be a regular hood light and plant growing bulb like an Aqueon plant, or AquaSun by ZooMed ~6500-6700K
LEDS are great but can give a weird tone to the tank, so if you go with them look at the kind you will buy on a tank to see how you like the color.