Sand in tanks

[bcroft]

Alright well I originally thought of this question with ams tank, its so nice with the sand

Question

BTW just in case I want to switch to sand, would I have to do a 100% water change? What kind of sand do I need?

Answer

You don't have to do a 100% water change, but there might be debris trapped in your current substrate. You may want to do a couple of partial water changes before switching to sand to get all the debris out.

Avoid calcium based sand, and don't get any sand that's marine only (reef sand or aragonite.) Stuff that's based off of silicon will be find.

The sand in my tank is play sand, which doesn't have any chemicals, but it will be dusty (if you go to the link above and hit the "Construction" link at the left you'll see.)

If you do go the play sand route make sure you wash it thoroughly (this will take longer than you think.) You can buy pre-washed sand at aquarium stores, but it'll be more expensive.

So far I've found This. It's very cheap!!

Now I'm just interested in how I'm going to clean it! I was thinking of a strainer with a piece of nylon on the bottom.

[amanichen]

That sand should work fine. Just make sure you get all the particles out of it, or else you'll have lots of dust to deal with.

[Rachel]

I know with my aquatic sand (which doesn't require rinsing) you simply have to let it soak in a bucket for a few days. Any of the dust/particles float to the top and are easily removed from the surface of the water. For play sand, you need to rinse it numerous times first and then letting it soak at the end probably wouldn't hurt. You could try the strainer idea and see how it works. I'm not sure what other methods those with play sand have used.

Sand is a really great substrate for any tank and by far my favorite of those I have tried.

[twoluvcats]

I have playsand in all my tanks...it can be a HUGE pain in the butt to get clean...but its darn cheap!!

Quickcrete is DIRTY!!!! it will take a LOT of washing...but it is also my favorite color of sand once its in the tank...its not a briliant white...more of a lower key brownish mixture.

Start with 2x the amount of sand than you think you'll need...cause you end up washing a lot of it away.

for rinsing...get an old pillowcase, put sand in take it outside and just sit and run a hose over the pillowcase for a long time...smoosh it around while you do it...that will get rid of most of the really small dirt...THEN get a bucket, and rinse it in there for a while...spray water in the bucket, stir it up and then pour the dirty water off...do that for a while...then you can put the sand in your tank...fill it up, and then do a couple 100% water changes to yet get MORE dirt out. That should get your sand really clean.

There's a couple of thing you have to do a bit differently when cleaning sand then gravel...When you are pouring water in, you can't just let it fall to the bottom or you will crate the sandstorm of all time...I use a terracotta plate that i set on the bottom of the tank so the sand doesn't get disturbed. The other thing is you can still use a gravel vac, you just don't want to shove it down into the sand at all, you just hover it a bit over the sand and it'll suck the junk right up.

HTH

[bcroft]

Thanks for all of the info!!!

Unfortunately I live on campus, and I dont think anyone will appreciate all of the sand everywhere. So I'm just going to spend the extra money on the aquasand and clean it out in a a new trash barrell.