Selecting gravel for an Angelfish tank

Well, you do have to occassionally stir sand or have a clean up crew that does it for you to prevent pockets of bad gases from collecting. But it is completely functional as a substrate by many folks. Whatever book is telling you that should be tossed.

While it looks great (sand), I feel I spend more time cleaning a sand bottom than gravel. With the gravel I can just vac away, skipping around plants, and the RUGF keep it pretty clean.

If you keep very messy fish, I would not recommend sand...it is always going to look dirty.
 
There was a video on here that showed a guy on his way to clean sand. I believe it was in a cichlid tank. Anyone still have the link to throw in here?

I have had gravel and sand in tanks. But with sand at Ace hardware for $5 for a 50lb bag, its in all my tanks now. Compared to the $1-$4 a pound natural gravel I bought in the past, I think it looks much better and isn't that hard to keep clean.
 
There is not solid answer to this. Sand is OK if you only have a little (1/2 inch or so), this way it is not deep and will not need cleaning---BUT--Sand stirs up too easy during water changes, too shallow for plants, ect.

If you want plants then use gravel.
 
:wall:Shoot, Then I should change all the substrates in my planted tanks!!!

:headshake2:

Actually, I've never had a problem with plants in my tanks with sand. And plants that spread via runners really take off. I just put in root tabs and they grow like weeds. There's alot of people who use sand in planted tanks....
 
Sand comes in a lot of forms...some finer stuff may cloud water, but the pool filter quartz sand I am using is heavy as lead, makes a great, easy-to-clean substrate and doesn't get sucked up when vacuuming the floor of the tank. I put the sand over a fertile substrate (peat is what I am using, but you could use flourite if money's not such an object). The peat colors the water, even covered with sand, so there must be some exchange of liquids going on. My plants thrive on this mix and my corys get into digging frenzies sometimes, being able to move that sand around without harming their barbels. I love the look of gravel, but as a low cost alternative, sand works really well.
 
Stirring the sand is really easy to do, I do it weekly. You could probably get away with doing it bi-weekly or once a month. I dont have any snails that would stir it for me. Mine does tend to get a little "dirty". It goes from being a bright off white, to a tanish brown color. When I do my weekly water change and stir my sand it goes back to the off-white color, not sure why it darkens to begin with. I use pool filter sand that says 100% pure silica sand on the packaging. Should be easy to find this time of the year as pool suppliers are putting there spring supplies back out. Here's the link someone requested...http://www.cichlid-forum.com/videos/cleaning_sand.php
 
I've found that the best substrate for plants is a mixture of sand and gravel/flourite. Looks the most natural, as well. Mix a few of the larger(1"-1 3/4") gravel pieces in there and you have a winner.
 
I got Eco-Complete for my 37 when I decided to plant it. It looks nice due to a mix of colors and grain sizes. Might be kind of costly for a tank your size though.
 
tanker said:
There is not solid answer to this. Sand is OK if you only have a little (1/2 inch or so), this way it is not deep and will not need cleaning---BUT--Sand stirs up too easy during water changes, too shallow for plants, ect.

If you want plants then use gravel.
Click to expand...

Not at all if you use pool filter sand! Yawn. No stirring up, no dust, no affect on water chemistry. I have mine over an inch deep in places, but because I use the sand to hold down peat, I purposely don't have it so deep the roots won't reach the peat. Sand is a great substrate, if you choose the right sand!
 
I use a course {It actually is considered a fine sand, # 1, 1-2 mm in size }grain sand in both tanks, and is heavy enough to allow the use of a gravel vac....:)
 
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