Question about sand substrate

[Fish are friends]

I have sand substrate and have been reading about gas pockets etc....what can i do to combat these? I have rooted plants some bog and driftwood and an air stone and will have 5 pepper corys and 2 bristlenose catfish but ive read about loaches and snails. with the corys and cat fish do i need any more bottom feeders/snails?

thanks

 

[LyndaB]

The idea of having snails with a sand substrate is that they will move throughout the substrate and break up these gas pockets for you. What I do in tanks with no snails is to rake my fingers through the exposed sand (not where it's planted) every time I do a water change.

 

[alex07]

From my experience I only get gas pockets when I have soil beneath the sand. If I have just sand no matter how deep the sand bed is I never got any gas pockets.

 

[Fish are friends]

so would u say snails are a good idea? when i water change i use a gravel cleaner that i used for my original tank and hover this very close to the sand but not directly on it....i suppose raking fingers is a good idea but if im honest the bottom of my tank is quite busy in places so can be hard to reach without disturbing things...also when adding water it does disturb the sand slightly...im not too sure on the best way forward tbh

 

[alex07]

so would u say snails are a good idea? when i water change i use a gravel cleaner that i used for my original tank and hover this very close to the sand but not directly on it....i suppose raking fingers is a good idea but if im honest the bottom of my tank is quite busy in places so can be hard to reach without disturbing things...also when adding water it does disturb the sand slightly...im not too sure on the best way forward tbh

My tanks aren't that heavily planted so I just turn off the filter so it wont suck any sand take out of the driftwoods and just pass the gravel cleaner around the plants.

 

[alex07]

I dont have any snails so at times i just push down with the gravel cleaner while I am doing a water change but only in the tanks that have soil. The other tank that is just sand i dont have to worry about gas pockets