Thu Mar 06, 2008 5:41 pm GMT   Reply      

I hope it works for you. I was thinking that sand bought for pool filters would have sharp edges and natural sand or aquarium sand would be rounder. Maybe it doesn't matter.

Thu Mar 06, 2008 6:27 pm GMT   Reply      

the best stuff so far is color quartz from 3M...


http://solutions.3m.com/wps/portal/3M/en_US/ColorQuartz/HomePage/Products/Crystals/

ask around to see if you could get this in your area... it's allready clean... just rinse it out once and you're ready to go... the colors are freaken amazing...

there's a forum that has a stickied thread about it... it's long but it has numbers of places where you could find some for about 25bucks for a 50lb bag...

Fri Mar 07, 2008 1:27 pm GMT   Reply      

I ended up getting quikrete premium playsand at lowes. It worked like a charm, it took me a couple hours to clean it because I only have 2 buckets but worked well. I used a plastic cup to lower it in there and the water didnt get mucky or anything. It's slightly cloudy from all the commosion but it's getting better already.
My Cichlids are going nuts in it and I was surprised as hell to find that 2 very small babies survived taking out the old gravel and putting the new sand in. Although they won't last long with my StoneFish in there he loves them for dinner.

I also took both bubblers out of there, I was reading that I don't really need them anyways and that they are mainly for looks. Is this true?

Fri Mar 07, 2008 3:11 pm GMT   Reply      

serial, bubblers as in air stones? so do you have any aeration left for the water (or for surface agitation)?

Fri Mar 07, 2008 4:58 pm GMT   Reply      

Yes, as in air stones. I put 1 of the air stones back in for now and just set it behind the drift wood. I have to figure out a new place to put it. I had very little surface agitation, the filter was barely doing much at all to the water for aeration so I put it back in.

Fri Mar 07, 2008 5:59 pm GMT   Reply      

ask your cheap ass landlord to help you out with a powerhead

Fri Mar 07, 2008 5:59 pm GMT   Reply      

oh wait thats me ....lol

Fri Mar 07, 2008 8:25 pm GMT   Reply      

Haha I'm sure my air stones will be fine for now. I may buy a powerhead eventually. If you want to donate one that's even better!

Fri Mar 07, 2008 9:05 pm GMT   Reply      

depending on when the 65 arrives I'll have an extra then - -wheres the new picks? that blue crap is ugly.....lol

Fri Mar 07, 2008 9:38 pm GMT   Reply      

I just took a few pictures with this camera but they were all blurry. I guess I'll try and take some new pictures tomorrow if your camera is around. My lights just turned off I'm waiting to see if the stoneDfish comes out to play in it.

Fri Mar 07, 2008 11:28 pm GMT   Reply      

i have a marineland flexible want burried in the sand... i like fat bubbles... lol...

and awesome that you tried the sand... you should op in a UGJ system...

Fri Mar 07, 2008 11:28 pm GMT   Reply      

After Peterkarig pointed me towards powerheads, i can't go back to air stones... just the beauty of being able to control the amount of air coming in is very handy. Also, my fish love the current, which is also controllable. Food rarely makes it to the substrate due to the current as well... great piece of equipment. Yeah i was about to ask where the new pics are, i'd love to see them. And Serial, if you live in LA, Peterkarig has some extra powerheads for sale i believe.

Fri Mar 07, 2008 11:52 pm GMT   Reply      

I live in Upstate NY. in Snowbosses basement lol. I was actually just reading up on a UGJ system. If i get a powerhead I will probably do that, it looks fairly easy. It will also help with the top of the sand looking like poop deck. Within the first hour my fish had shit everywhere.

Gumbii do you have a regulator on your air? I thought if I buried my air stone in the sand it would just blow the sand off of it without a regulator. So i just set it in there ontop of the pipe for my stonefish for now.

Sat Mar 08, 2008 12:01 am GMT   Reply      

my bubble wand is 48" long i think... it's burried under the sand and under the rocks... i was going to put it under the egg crate, but bah... then it wouldn't sit right...


i just got a cheapo wal-mart marineland made double air pump for the bubble curtain... they go thru the rocks first, then into the rest of the tank... thick chunky bubbles come out of the sand... but... if you're intakes from the filters are near by you might get some sand going into the filters... the bubbles raise the sand a bit... but only like 1 or 0 grains of sand per bubble... so it's very minimal...

the only sand that does get into the filters is the sand that the cichlids spit out into the filter intakes... oh well...

Sat Mar 08, 2008 3:01 pm GMT   Reply      

I just uploaded some new pictures. Hopefully they will go through soon. I also don't know if it will come up as my default picture I will probably have to delete all the other ones and reupload them to get itas my default(which really sucks). The sand makes it look like a whole new tank.

Edit:
Here's the new pic of my tank.
http://www.ratemyfishtank.com/friendemail.php/16446