Hi all. This is my first post here so bear with me. I have a 120 gallon tank and am thinking of switching out the current blue gravel to a white sand. I read a few reviews that said that the sand looks great but that it shows the fish waste alot and thus requires more frequent cleaning (some even mentioned 2-3 times a week). Does anyone have any experience with white sand and if so what are your thoughts on how often it should be cleaned in order to look nice? Also any comments regarding sand vs gravel would be appreciated as well. Thanks.
White Sand - Does it require more frequent cleaning?
- Thread starter Labamba32
- Start date
Depends on your feeding habits, stocking, flow in the tank and filtration. Not a real easy answer to your question. You may need to experiment with getting the flow to drive the debri towards the suction of the filters, such as using power heads. Most folks will say the sand looks more natural than colored gravel for sure.
I was having a slight problem with surface bubbles and other various particles on the surface of the water in one of my 20g tanks. I added one powerhead and PRESTO!......... all cleared up with the extra circulation. I generally unplug it when feeding the fish so they can get the food without chasing it all over the tank.
I've had white sand develop algae on the individual grains and it isn't that noticeable until the sand gets disturbed and the clean grains beneath are revealed. Then you can really see the discoloration of the surface grains. As Bob posted, stocking can play a big part in how much this happens. My discus continually blew the sand around while feeding so moved the surface grains around...mts did as well. When I had Malawians in the tank and a deep sand bed, they sifted and turned over large amounts of sand so it usually appeared pristine with no algal darkening.
Mark
Mark
Did it also work to push fish waste to the filter suction? The reviews I read seemed to imply that fish waste was very visible against the white sand.
Well since I do not have white sand, I never see fish waste. My substrate is a brown/beige color. My guess is that it probably would push fish waste closer to the intake of your filter if you position it lower in the tank. Mine is up high to polish up the surface of the water, but these powerheads can be used for many purposes. No guarantee that all fish waste will fly away to the filter , but I think it would certainly help. You just don't want it so low that it blows the sand around.
Yes, white sand does show all the wastes on top of it, and needs regular vacuuming. But that's the whole idea and the benefit of it. It looks good, and you can't really fail to get rid of all the wastes as they accumulate. With gravel, you don't see the wastes, so you bother much less to clean it up, and that's not a good thing.
I have light beige sand in my 135g. It collected more waste before I introduced snails. The snails take care of a lot of the waste and agitate the sand enough that algae never grows on it. It would require more vacuuming but I am letting the detritus gather in certain corners and under certain plants just to see what happens. I like the natural sand look a lot more than the groomed golf bunker look. A little mess makes it look more natural to me.
