pseudotropheus demasoni-play sand

[josh131]

What is play sand? If I want to use cotrolled overstocking with pseudotropheus demasoni then will I need a nice filter like a bio wheel? For extra efficiency should I use a filter made for a bigger tank in there? Also could I get some of those big snails or is that a bad idea. Thanks.

[fishlips]

Play sand is very fine sand which is too fine in my opinion. I use crushed gravel to help buffer my ph. If you plan to overcrowd extra filtration is needed. I would at least double the rate. plenty of water changes are respected.

[josh131]

Thanks alot. Is play sand ok for all fish?

[Verse914]

yeah, pretty much.

[JSchmidt]

As long as you don't have too deep of a bed, I don't think play sand would be a problem. The fish do enough digging that you don't have to worry so much about anaerobic pockets. Even better than play sand, though, would be aragonite sand, which has about the same texture as play sand, but buffers the water like crushed coral (better than coral actually).

If you're overcrowding demasoni, be sure to not only have great filtration, but have LOTS of rockwork. These fish need to have little areas that are visually isolated from other parts of the tank. I have a number of slate assemblies that are siliconed/epoxied together that are basically little demasoni condos. The silicon and epoxy don't always stick that well over time, but the condos work OK for the most part.

I've also found that the quality of food makes a huge difference. I feed my demasoni a lot of algae wafers, and when feeding cheaper wafers, there is a lot of waste. Higher quality wafers (e.g., Hikari) seem to produce less waste and the fish look better, too.

Good luck with your demasoni, and be sure to do lots of H2O chagnes!

Jim

[josh131]

Thanks for the great information.