Sand?

[Aurie]

Right now I use natural river pebbles in my tank and some day want to do sand.. silly question.. but what happens if you need to siphon? does it go all nuts throughout yer tank or does it weigh itself down?

[Tikibirds]

are you asking if it makes the water cloudy when its siponed?

I have both petco brand sand and normal play sand from toys R Us. Neither of them have really given me too much of a problem with staying suspended in the water if its distrubed but I have seen several people saying certain brands are a massive pain in the neck - I think Caribsea is one of them. The petco sand tends to float when you do WC's but just tap the floating patches and they sink back down

[Aurie]

I put river rock/red black gravel in my betta tank and to be honest, after 2 weeks I hate it.. the dark colors make it look small so I was going to go with white or grey sand. I just put in what I had at the time. Might be a project for the next paycheck :)

[marktrc]

Originally Posted by Aurie

I put river rock/red black gravel in my betta tank and to be honest, after 2 weeks I hate it.. the dark colors make it look small so I was going to go with white or grey sand. I just put in what I had at the time. Might be a project for the next paycheck :)

Black sand or gravel makes fish colors appear brighter. When you change to a lighter sandyou might think your fish colors look washed out.

After you change to a lighter color sand please update. I'd like to know which you prefer as I'm trying to decide on light or dark sand.

[littlemermaid]

I recently changed my 29 gallon over to sand which was quite a learning experience. I used play sand and on my second attempt I took it outside and rinsed it really really really well in a large tub until the water ran clear and now my tank looks amazing! It kicks up a tad when I siphon but settles back down in just a few seconds I just make sure to be real gentle and swirl the siphon just over the top of the sand to keep from getting it everywhere. Good luck!

[megaredize]

i had sand, it looks nice but i dont like working with it, u cant put the siphon into like you do with gravel you have to hover over it so you can hopefully pic up debris that is on top of the sand. Since sand has such a smaller particle debris doesnt usually get into the sand like it gets into gravel. you can always go with a larger sand than play sand. i heard tahitian moon sand is a larger particle sand. so it doesnt kick up so much, but it is black. there must be a light coloured sand like that also.

[xShainax]

I use Caribsea in my 29 gallon. I use a net to scoop out any debris