I've been researching about aquarium sand and I am still wondering about the in tank cleaning process when you cycle your water out. I've heard it gets sucked out in a syphon so how do you clean it?
A freind of mine has freshwater sand in his tank and I asked him the same question he said very little sand is lost during his water changes and he has had sand in it for over 2 years,hope this helps.
I had a 10 gallon freshwater planted aquarium with sand and rocks from the beach. It looked and was a great little tank. I even had an under gravel filter and the sand didn't let the water through at all after a while! I ended up putting a sponge filter over one riser tube and a power head on the other and water just went down one side and up the other. The sand didn't foul the water and I had loaches and lots of other fish, and I had pretty strong current which probably helped poop and debris to get sucked out of the water column instead of going into the sand. The sand looked great though.
sand is amazing... i will never get gravel ever again... i'm bieng cerial...
i've recently added dragon fish to some of my tanks and they do wonders keeping the sand bed level and clean... plus i use under gravel jets, and they do have dead spots... the dragon fish take care of they deads...
You don't clean it and if you are careful, it doesn't get sucked out. you really do not need to vacuum your sand like you do the gravel. You can buy special vacuums that have a flap to cover the exhaust tube and keep your sand in the tank.
I was recently thinking about putting sand in my tank. I read somewhere that you can get pool-filter sand and it doesn't do anything to your PH levels (and it's a hell of a lot cheaper). But I really don't understand how I'm suppose to put it in there without clogging up my filter (especially if it's really fine). Do I have to take most of the water out? Also when (if) I put it in, will I have to keep my filter off for a little while to let it settle?
hey bud , you can put the sand in a small bag and lower into your tank,right to the bottom.and slice the bag with a razor knife. shut all your filters off .once you are done adding sand.turn the filters back on. i am not a fresh water guy so i dont know what kind of sand is better... goodluck
when i first started saltwater tanks i had a hob filter and it ran fine with sand. now idk if playsand will have any affects on your filter, gumbii had sand in his freshwater tanks try to contact him.
I would get a sand that has been screened so the particles aren't too small. I think when I used beach sand I put some in a bucket and ran a hose through it while mixing with my hand. All the finner particles would rinse/overflow out leaving the larger. I had unlimited amounts as I was using the sand for my garden as well, so I could afford to waste it.
i had to modify my intake tubes as far up as possible... sand still gets in my filters but hasn't destroyed anything...
i couldn't find pool filter sand... so i got target brand pool filter sand... it's light grey and was fairly easy to rinse in a bucket... also not that fine... and 5 bucks for a 50lb bag... you can't beat that...
