• We are currently upgrading MFK. thanks! -neo

Sand vs. Bare Bottom

xx WingZero xx;3853050; said:
hmmmm...judging from the responses i think im going with a sand layer. that raises another set of questions. what would be the heaviest sand, i dont want the sand in my filters. also how thick a layer should it be? does it matter?
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good options for sand are:

pool filter sand - very easy to find and cheap

play sand - very easy to find and cheap

3M Colorquartz - hard to find and expansive in comparison to play sand and PFS

Estes - hard to find and expansive in comparison to play sand and PFS


i would go with Estes if u can find it, Ive heard nothing but good thing about it.

i would never have a sand bed deeper then 1''
 
Sand also is a good source of BB. I'm sure I can run my 125G with just power heads to circulate the water over the sand and not have any filters. I can vacuum out the solid stuff during the weekly water change.

I have done it with another tank. The BB in the sand was enough to keep ammonia & nitrites at zero with a good size bio-load.
 
I'd agree with all of what Sting said, except I'd 100% avoid playsand. It's not any cheaper than pool filter sand, but it's generally much dirtier and harder to clean when you buy it, and it's also finer and has a better chance of getting into your filters. The pool sand does have a sort of "beachy" look to it though, if you don't think you'll like that try for the 3M Colorquartz as you can get various colors.

I don't find it hard to clean at all. I suppose bare bottom has to be simpler than sand, if only for the work rinsing the sand when you first put it in. But if you have a nice shallow <1" sand bed you shouldn't have to stir it, and if you've got enough current you shouldn't see poo sitting on the sand. One concern, with an acrylic tank you want to be careful if you do any algae removal, as you can get sand under your algae sponge and scratch your acrylic. In that case I'm a chicken, so I never scrubbed all the way down to the sand and you'd see an inch or so of algae at the bottom right above the sand. But I put in a pleco and he took care of that...which is fine if you like plecos.
 
Depending on how much you need...this is where I got my estes sand from...you can get it for 1$ per pound but you need 300 lbs of it. If you dont need that much you can ask them what shipping would be. It brakes down to this...18 bucks per 30lb case...free shipping on orders of 175$...10 buck handling fee per 25lb of gravel/sand. So you need 10 cases to hit 180 bucks...and 10 bucks per 25lb is 120$ making it 300$ for 300lbs. I was using it for my 240 african tank so I got 300 lbs. I only ended up using about 1/2 in the african tank and have the rest for other tanks. My LFS also could have ordered it for me but I think it was more per case but might have been a better route if I didnt need 300lbs.

http://store.seacorals.net/esaqsablaqsu3.html

Another trick is to order the sand you need from them and then see if there are any other dry goods you need to hit the 175$ mark but not add the 10$/25lb of substrate cost.
 
It wont get cloudy...but one thing that might happen is the oscars taking mouth fulls and spitting it into filter intakes. I watch my WC festae dig in the gravel and take mouth fulls and spit it in other places. Estes sand (and any other sand really) is small enough to lock up an impeller of a filter or power head. You can always run a small sponge on the intakes to stop it 100%. I have never had a problem but I dont have it with oscars. I do have some oscars I might try it with tho...just gotta use your head on intake placement and whatnot.
 
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