I love the look of sand in an aquarium, and was disappointed I hadn't started with it in my 55 gallon, now that I'm getting into plants and fish that appreciate being able to root around. Recently I had the opportunity to set my 46 gallon up for a pair of Geophagus, and so I decided to make the switch.
I searched on the interweb about how to do this, and didn't find many complete explanations. I was worried that I would have a tank full of cloudiness and broken pumps and a whole slew of nightmare possibilities. After 5 minutes or so of careful thought and consideration, I found I was already at the pool store with some pool-filter sand in my hands. A 50 lb bag was more than enough for a 46 gallon, and ran me $8.00. I am aware that a black blasting sand is made by someone somewhere, but I couldn't find any locally. I bought a 20 lb bag of Super Natural black aquarium sand ( $18! ) from my LFS.
I drained the tank into a 10 gallon cooler, and 2 5 gallon buckets ( buckets! must have buckets for this! ), and put the fish and plants into the cooler with an aerator. I vacuumed the existing gravel really well as I was draining the tank, then scooped out most of it, until there was just a real thin layer left across the bottom.
I took a 5 gal bucket and dumped about 1 parts black sand to 3 parts pool sand, and mixed it up until it was a color I was happy with. I used a hose inside the bucket, churning the sand, then dumping the small bits out, until the water in the bucket was fairly clear. I rinsed about 5 times to achieve this. I lowered the bucket into the tank, after arranging the existing gravel in the center, so it wouldn't be visible against the glass, and dumped the sand in, leveling it out. It took 2 half buckets of sand to get 2 inches of depth.
I had used my Python to drain the tank, and now I set a plate under the hose, and slowly turned the water on so there was minimal disturbance of the sand. I filled and drained the tank 4 times, vacuuming the particles and netting the debris. This part took the longest, but I wanted to make sure there were no large particles in the water column for my filters to suck up. After the 4th fill and drain, the water looked pretty clear, so I added enough Prime to treat the whole tank, and filled to 1/4 of the tank with the Python. I then started adding the tank water, I found that setting the cooler up off the ground with a chair made it easy to siphon from the tank to the cooler, and then from the cooler to a bucket when refilling. At 3/4 full, I added the decorations, plants, and fish, then filled to the top. The tank was slightly murky looking, but nothing like I had thought it would look like just after adding sand. I stuck some of the old gravel into two media bags, moved the filter media into one side of one of the HOB filters, and added the bags to the filter, since I had removed much of the bio-filtration by removing the gravel. I'm going to be testing often during the next few weeks for ammonia and nitrites, but I'm hoping I have enough bacteria in the filters ( each have been running well over 2 years ), to prevent a cycle.
Here is how the tank looks 3 hours later:
I searched on the interweb about how to do this, and didn't find many complete explanations. I was worried that I would have a tank full of cloudiness and broken pumps and a whole slew of nightmare possibilities. After 5 minutes or so of careful thought and consideration, I found I was already at the pool store with some pool-filter sand in my hands. A 50 lb bag was more than enough for a 46 gallon, and ran me $8.00. I am aware that a black blasting sand is made by someone somewhere, but I couldn't find any locally. I bought a 20 lb bag of Super Natural black aquarium sand ( $18! ) from my LFS.
I drained the tank into a 10 gallon cooler, and 2 5 gallon buckets ( buckets! must have buckets for this! ), and put the fish and plants into the cooler with an aerator. I vacuumed the existing gravel really well as I was draining the tank, then scooped out most of it, until there was just a real thin layer left across the bottom.
I took a 5 gal bucket and dumped about 1 parts black sand to 3 parts pool sand, and mixed it up until it was a color I was happy with. I used a hose inside the bucket, churning the sand, then dumping the small bits out, until the water in the bucket was fairly clear. I rinsed about 5 times to achieve this. I lowered the bucket into the tank, after arranging the existing gravel in the center, so it wouldn't be visible against the glass, and dumped the sand in, leveling it out. It took 2 half buckets of sand to get 2 inches of depth.
I had used my Python to drain the tank, and now I set a plate under the hose, and slowly turned the water on so there was minimal disturbance of the sand. I filled and drained the tank 4 times, vacuuming the particles and netting the debris. This part took the longest, but I wanted to make sure there were no large particles in the water column for my filters to suck up. After the 4th fill and drain, the water looked pretty clear, so I added enough Prime to treat the whole tank, and filled to 1/4 of the tank with the Python. I then started adding the tank water, I found that setting the cooler up off the ground with a chair made it easy to siphon from the tank to the cooler, and then from the cooler to a bucket when refilling. At 3/4 full, I added the decorations, plants, and fish, then filled to the top. The tank was slightly murky looking, but nothing like I had thought it would look like just after adding sand. I stuck some of the old gravel into two media bags, moved the filter media into one side of one of the HOB filters, and added the bags to the filter, since I had removed much of the bio-filtration by removing the gravel. I'm going to be testing often during the next few weeks for ammonia and nitrites, but I'm hoping I have enough bacteria in the filters ( each have been running well over 2 years ), to prevent a cycle.
Here is how the tank looks 3 hours later:
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And yes, sand is definitely the better choice and it's hard to go back to gravel of any kind.
