Dary421
Aquarium Advice Addict
Originally when I set up my tank I thought that having a black sand substrate would be kinda neat and different,...well after seeing how it looked after everything was set up and running it kinda gave me the appearance of being kinda dirty looking even if it was clean,..also the grains of sand turned out to have more of the size and shape of small gravel which I'm sure would trap any debris that it would encounter.
The more I looked at it the more I wanted and wished that I had gone with the white substrate from the start,..so,.figuring it's better late than never I decided to add some white sand over the top of the black " gravel" ,...I followed some forum leads and ask some buddies about adding it and the consensus was to go ahead and do it.,because of the out lay I have multiple caves and tunnels thru out my tank so I had to figure out just how to try and cover the exposed black sand without screwing everything up.
I used a small plastic water bottle loaded with sand to fill in the larger areas and I filed up my trusty turkey Baster with sand to get the small intricate areas. Of course the tank clouded up for a half an hour or so but it settled down pretty quick and came out crystal clear within an hour ,...it's been running now like this for 24 hours now and so far all the parameters seem up to par.
I really didn't have any good before pictures but managed to find a couple that would give you an idea,...the new white sand pictures were just taken,..I think it looks a lot better now,..hope you agree,...and I hope I didn't screw anything up,...this is the one time that my fish store buddy said that he'd recommend using " live" sand in place of the dry sand....got my fingers crossed!
The more I looked at it the more I wanted and wished that I had gone with the white substrate from the start,..so,.figuring it's better late than never I decided to add some white sand over the top of the black " gravel" ,...I followed some forum leads and ask some buddies about adding it and the consensus was to go ahead and do it.,because of the out lay I have multiple caves and tunnels thru out my tank so I had to figure out just how to try and cover the exposed black sand without screwing everything up.
I used a small plastic water bottle loaded with sand to fill in the larger areas and I filed up my trusty turkey Baster with sand to get the small intricate areas. Of course the tank clouded up for a half an hour or so but it settled down pretty quick and came out crystal clear within an hour ,...it's been running now like this for 24 hours now and so far all the parameters seem up to par.
I really didn't have any good before pictures but managed to find a couple that would give you an idea,...the new white sand pictures were just taken,..I think it looks a lot better now,..hope you agree,...and I hope I didn't screw anything up,...this is the one time that my fish store buddy said that he'd recommend using " live" sand in place of the dry sand....got my fingers crossed!