• We are currently upgrading MFK. thanks! -neo

To Sand Or Not To Sand? -Substrate.

Your upgrade sounds like as exciting prospect @ Cardeater! I haven't finished my planting yet, but so far I like separation of the Torpedo Beach and the Green/Gray gravel going into the canyon. There as been no muddling --so far so good.
 
Thank you Cardeater for posting the pics, that was just great. About a month in the Torpedo Beach "Sand" still has a polish. Like company says a light, barely discernable amount of deitrus collects rarely on the surface. It does not detract noticeably from the appearance. I had to look closely to notice. Easy to vacuum off. I mix some deeper into the substrata to create a fertile base for plant roots. I will update further in time the maintenance of the TB medium. Merry Christmas to you.

And Happy Holidays to all of you Monster Fish Keepers. It is very cool being a part of this unique community. Thank you.
 
Fishflyer said:
I have read and seen that pool filter sand has more incidence of gas pockets due to compacting. Using a shallower layer of PFS helps elevate this or mixing PFS with Torpedio Beach Sand.
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Correction: Meant to say " Using a shallower layer of PFS helps eliviate this" ( gas pockets). I think my device substituted a word. Hopefully it doesn't do it again when I post this--chuckle. Well sorry about that.
 
Fishflyer said:
Thank you Cardeater for posting the pics, that was just great. About a month in the Torpedo Beach "Sand" still has a polish. Like company says a light, barely discernable amount of deitrus collects rarely on the surface. It does not detract noticeably from the appearance. I had to look closely to notice. Easy to vacuum off. I mix some deeper into the substrata to create a fertile base for plant roots. I will update further in time the maintenance of the TB medium. Merry Christmas to you.

And Happy Holidays to all of you Monster Fish Keepers. It is very cool being a part of this unique community. Thank you.
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A additional note about cleaning Torpedo Beach Sand. I went deep with the suction vacuum and it cleans well. Not that there was anything to clean, but the sand rises a bit into the vacuum cup, but it won't be sucked into the suction tube. (Too heavy.) This substrate medium seems to do everything the company advertises. This is a quality product thus far.
 
Nice that you have had no sand gas pocket problems. Your black sand mix sounds like a Handsome substrata. Once I mixed my aquarium sand with play sand, I no longer had problems with toxic gas pocket problems anymore
 
I prefer sand to gravel, but when you are using it in a tank with active fish, like my electric blue haps for example, when they dig in the sand it takes longer for sand to come back down to the bottom of the tank, so then it would get sucked into the filters and stop the impellers. When I moved them into another tank, I went with a fine black gravel, even though it could still probably fit into the filter intake, it comes back down to the bottom of the tank much quicker, and I have had that tank set up with the gravel for a few months and haven't had any issues with the gravel getting into the filter so far.
 
neoprodigy said:
I prefer bare... or even tiles
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But does crap ever get trapped between the tiles and the bottom of the tank? I used to not use any substrate, but I have added sand to a lot of my tanks, but I still keep two of my 40 gallon tanks without any substrate. I also don't use any substrate in my koi pond, because substrate should never be used in a koi pond, but tiles would look cool in a concrete koi pond.
 
The Torpedo Beach Sand is rather like a light weight gravel even though it is advertised as a sand. It has no drift and falls straight down quickly. I see this as posing no problems for filters.
 
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