Sand in 5 gallon causing issues

[platycrazy19]

So I decided to set up my old 5 gallon tank and get a dwarf puffer fish. I have never tried sand before and thought it would be fun to do. I bought some sand from petsmart. It's white and really fine. I rinsed it well before putting it into my tank. i placed it in filled the tank with water but the decorations in and let it sit over night to allow the sand to settle. in the morning i noticed there was a white film over all the decorations from the sand that didn't look so great. I let it do though figuring it was just from all the sand settling. I had two filters running on my 10g and took one of the filters and placed it on the 5 gallon. I figured this would help it pretty much instantly cycle. For the mean time I moved one of my platys from my ten gallon to the 5 gallon and added 3 ghost shrimp to keep the bioload in place until I get my dwarf puffer. So my issues are that the filter keeps disturbing the sand easily and I think that the filter is sucking up a lot of sand to though I plan to check it in the morning for sure. Also my platy that I placed in there for the mean time keeps hiding out in the corner and just floating along the top of the water. I'm thinking that there's not enough oxygen in the water, my filter has an adjustable flow and I have it set on low to try and reduce the amount of sand that is being blown around. Can someone help me? I"m starting to think sand was a really bad idea.

 

[librarygirl]

If the fish isn't doing well in the new tank I'd move it back. You can always add pure ammonia (best) or some fish food to add an ammonia source to feed the bacteria without using a fish. It depends on the type of sand but it may take a few days and some water changes to get the cloudiness out and before it fully settles. What kind of sand was it, do you know the name?

 

[platycrazy19]

The brand was CaribSea and it was called Super Naturals: Premium Aquarium Substrate.

 

[Matt68005]

sand is hard to do in a 5 gallon, everytime you do a waterchange, which you need to do alot of in a small tank, you are going to have the same problem, with spashing the water and making the sand float all over.

 

[platycrazy19]

It's not really the water changes that are difficult but its the filter moving the sand around. Also I'm concerned that the sand may ruin my filter.

 

[Shadey]

God I hate sand.

You can do a couple things though.

-get a sponge sock for the filter intake (like Fluval Edge Pre Filter Sponge | Fluval Edge Reviews or make one)
-baffle the outflow. Either construct something (Filter Baffle - Aquarium Forum) or stuff another sponge in there.

 

[platycrazy19]

Thanks for the links. I think with a few adjustments I might be able to get it to work. the filter I have is an internal filter and it pulls the water through the sponges before it hits the motor so I think it won't hurt it to much if it sucks in some sand. It also has an attachment on it that disperses the water through multiple holes in a tube. But I think I will try placing a decoration where the water flow hits so that it hits the decoration rather than the sand.

 

[platycrazy19]

This sand is driving me nuts. I think I may replace it with a natural looking gravel. I'm looking for something that is smaller in size than the typical gravel I see at the pet stores. Anyone have any suggestions of where I could get some, I don't have many options.