75g African Substrate

[twincessna340a]

I plan on using CaribSea cichlid sand for my substrate...how much should I use in my 48x18 75g and about how deep should it be?

 

[mfdrookie516]

Substrate Calculator

If it were me, I'd save my money and go with PFS... I got mine for $1.99 per 50lb bag at Meijer.

 

[twincessna340a]

yeah, definitely going with the PFS....any special rinsing before putting it in?

 

[mfdrookie516]

no special rinsing.. just rinse, repeat, rinse, repeat... so forth and so on until the water stays clear... Mine only took about 3 times before it was clean. Pretty easy

 

[mattrox]

For that size tank, 2x 50lb bags of pfs will be plenty.

 

[CEverii]

Whats pfs? lol


If I rinse the sand from my salt water tank really good, can I use that or should I just buy new sand?

 

[JohnPaul]

Whats pfs? lol

Pool Filter Sand. Sold by (surprise surprise) pool supply companies as well as some hardware stores. It is commonly used in aquaria because it is a little larger-grained than your typical child's play sand, and thus settles down better and is less likely to get sucked up into your filter etc.

If I rinse the sand from my salt water tank really good, can I use that or should I just buy new sand?

If it was just regular inert sand, and you rinsed it really well, then sure. If it was "live sand," then no, as all of the microorganisms (which are saltwater organisms) will immediately die off when put in freshwater, leading to all of them rotting and creating a huge ammonia spike.