I want to switch to sand substrate from the gravel I'm using now. Will this be OK with my common pleco, kissing gouramis, and bala sharks?
Switch to sand ok?
- Thread starter sillytonto
- Start date
Pleco prolly wont like it if you dont have enough other surfaces for him to chew on, if you have pleanty of wood rocks and plants then he will be fine. Your gouramis wont give a rats *** about the sand, and and your balla sharks will LOVE IT. btw.... how many gallons is your aquarium??? you know bala sharks will get to be about 15-18" long.... at full adult you will need an aquarium that is at LEAST 6' long for three of them, with pleanty of room in the middle area for them to shcool back and forth in.
Yes I dont see any trouble with it. Look into pool filter sand its much cheaper and tends not to float around the tank so much.
. btw.... how many gallons is your aquarium??? you know bala sharks will get to be about 15-18" long.... at full adult you will need an aquarium that is at LEAST 6' long for three of them, with pleanty of room in the middle area for them to shcool back and forth in.[/QUOTE]
Yeah, they're just baby Balas in a 125, so they'll be ok for a while. I'm planning to get a 180 later.
Yeah, they're just baby Balas in a 125, so they'll be ok for a while. I'm planning to get a 180 later.
I got some white silica sand at menards really cheap (50 lbs for $5) and it looks great! Watch out for diatoms though, they like sand.
I've had great luck with playground sand from Home Depot. It's cheap, and when very well rinsed provides an almost white substrate. Not too coarse, not too fine; it's juuust right. I rinse it in several pound groupings in 5 gallon buckets in the tub; swirl it around a few times, a little will go down the drain, not enough to hurt anything. When you put it in the tank you have very little settle time. When I gravel vac, I do it gently but thoroughly--therefore I've had no problem with sand going up the filter or clouding up. Just use your common sense. I love the look of sand, I have Tahitian black moon in my 55g, awesome.
If you do go to sand, just be sure to frequently stir it or you will get toxic gas building up in the bottom of your tank. I had some sand in one of my tanks because it was softer on the catfish feelers, but I took it out this last weekend because I couldn't seem to keep it stirred enough and I kept getting toxic bubbles.
Yuck. Do you have any idea what kind of gas it is that forms? Anyone else heard of this? I'm starting to have second thoughts about this sand stuff...