Is sand good for freshwater aquariums??

[Kristin90]

I have had my tank set up for almost a month and a half. I used gravel but I have been wanting to change to sand.. Anyone have any advice of how to change, what kind of sand, things like that. Thanks

 

[picture_117]

Sand is awesome! I have it in all my tanks.
You can get colorful kinds as you see in petstores. Finer sand may compact and needs to be sifted regularly.
If you want to save money you can go for Pool Filter Sand, it's natural color and has larger grains. It's usually $5 for 50lbs. As far as changing it, you could do half one week and half the next week depending on the size of your tank.

 

[Kristin90]

Ok. Thanks alot. Have another question though. Do I need to wash it several times before putting it in my tank??

 

[picture_117]

You can boil it, rinse it, and put it in a bucket and clean it. I bought Pool Filter Sand and put it a large bucket and filled it with water, let it soak for about 2 days, then put the hose in the bucket and let if overflow so that any debris would top over. Move it around to get any dust or debris out. If the tank has fish in it then you might want to do extra cleaning.

 

[Kristin90]

Ok thanks. Do you by any chance no about cleaning driftwood??

 

[Dboone]

The best thing to do for drift wood is to boil it in good clean water look for any water color change if it changes color empty and repeat till no change and your good to go

 

[Kristin90]

Ok. And thank you again. Lol

 

[picture_117]

Yeah boil it about once or twice, then soak it regular water for about a day. The boiling should kill anything in it, as well as leach tannis, and the soaking will further leach out the tannis.