can i use sand?

M

mtdewlover

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Dec 19, 2002
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I have a 29 gallon tank with three red zebra cichlids and two yellow tailed violet cichlids and one huge sucker fish. I want to change this to a low light planted tank. I currently have big chunk blue gravel I got from Walmart. Can I use regular play sand? Or do you recomend something different? Could I use the play sand and my regular gravel mixed together?

Thanks
Alicia
 
Sand is fine. I have it in 2 planted tanks, and it hasn't been a problem. Make sure you have good filtration to stir up the solid wastes so the filter can remove them.
 
I dunno how the sand/gravel mix would go - you'll end up with alot of sand on the bottom with gravel on top. Definately have to add a bunch of sand to fill in all the spaces between the gravel...

But, I have a 20L with sand - all from the wild, and the plants grow fine. It's even pretty low light.
 
Mixing sand and gravel can make quite a mess in the long run. I have done it in the past by putting in 'pools' / segments of gravel or sand surrounded by plastic tubing to keep the 'pools' from mixing in with each other. This worked frairly well, though mixing both sediments together didn't give the aesthetic quality I was hoping for.
 
actully, the way I set up my tank is I put down the sand 1st.,
Then I put the gravel in the areas I wanted and the area I didn't I added more sand. So I don't have sand over gravel but gravel
over sand! Theres a little mixing but not to much to be a bother.
 
How does it turn out if you add Flourite to sand? Can I get it throroughly mixed and have the benefit of both? Does it look decent/natural? I have access to the red or blackish-red versions of Flourite, which is best?
 
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