PomPrint Fish Pages :: Sand did not work out.

I'm sorry to report that my short experiment with sand (kiddies play sand) was unsuccessful.

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The problems were as follows:-

1   The difficulty of cleaning the sand.
2   The fineness of the sand getting blown about everywhere and deposited on everything by the filter.
3   The fish, in my case Kribs, an Acara and a Zebra Obliquidens, all swam around with little banners saying "LET ME OUT!!"

I have now cleaned out the tank (or rather my wife and Nigel cleaned out the tank under my supervision

) which smelt pretty rancid, and replaced it with some rather expensive, but not so fine coral sand.

Will report back later on this one once I decide what to put in here. Perhaps a couple of Frontosas............

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Re: Sand did not work out.

by Nigalius on Sat 12 Aug 2006 19:23 BST | Profile | Permanent Link

Steve... Its a pity that it did not work out in your using sand in the aquarium but I think there is a case for using fine sand in some setups. Having seen first hand of the mess, not to mention the smell caused by using kiddies play sand perhaps it would be more suitable to use it in a set up with mainly Rays where the fish sort of glide over the bottom. This may not disturb the sand so much. I also dont think plants are very suitable in a tank with that kind of sand as they cant help but get covered in the stuff making it rather unsightly. As for the cleaning, perhaps when syphoning the water out of the tank it would help to have the container just below the surface as this way, the pressure should not be too much so as to suck too much sand from the bottom. Nigel

Re: Sand did not work out.

by Matthew on Tue 22 Aug 2006 13:50 BST | Profile | Permanent Link

it is a pity, my sand in my firemouth tank is working flawlessly. I love it because its so easy to keep clean. Just hold the hose like 1/2 inches from the surface of the sand and it removes the decay and presents :)