Sand or no sand, nano....

Mako

Mako

EET MOR KATFISH
Nov 19, 2001
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Wake Forest, NC
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I'm considering setting up a nano. Not having an aquarium setup is killing me. I've kept one before with good success, with NO sand in them.

If I were to set up, say, a 6 gallon tank (built by me out of scrap glass) that is 10" wide, 20" long, and 10" tall, would the tank benefit from, say, 1/4" to 1/2" of fine calcium-based sand in it, or would you leave it out?


I don't want something that will accumulate detritus, but at the same time I like the benefits of having a few pounds of live sand available.
 
That would be over 8.6 gallons.

Fine sands do not trap debris the way course substrates do. So using a sand as opposed to crushed coral should not cause an issue with that at all. I would never keep a bare bottom tank for a number of reasons. Besides the look of it it is very unnatural for them to be on a bare bottom.

There are very few fish that could go in something that small, and it would require a lot of live rock, but it is possible.
 
6-10 gallon nano's can def have some small fish... not many... but small fish would be fine.

The sand is really up to you. I've maintained Nanos with and without sand. its really up to you!
 
At that depth, the sand is really for aesthetics only. Its obviously not enough to get DSB benefits, and since detritus will stay on top of sand about as well as it will stay on top of the glass bottom, its pretty much up to you whether you want to look at it or not.
 
Thanks for the input,all.


The nano I used to keep had NO sand in it, but the bottom was quickly covered with a very thin layer of rock fragments and sediment, plus algae growing on it. Looked quite nice to me, not to mention easy to keep clean (and no sand getting sucked into the impeller).


BTW I referred to the dimensions as a "6 gallon" because there's no way I'd get 8+ gallons of water in it. After measuring a standard 10 gallon today, I realized that I was basically thinking of making the same thing, so I will likely go with a 10. Hard to beat for $8.
 
I have a 2.5g nano or pico. It has about 2 pounds live sand in it with a very tiny damsel. the sand stays out of the AC30 and doesnt collect anything with my hermits lol.
 
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