checking out sand again. Sand, which seems more popular in other countries, seems to be enjoying a resurgence among some plant people. One will see more natural behaviors with cichlids, Corys, and certainly with some loaches which will even bury themselves. Others are taken with the look of the tank and the fact that plants may thrive, especially producing great root systems (though transplanting can be a pain.)
A few plant geeks leave plant fertilizers or special gravels under the sand. That is pretty tricky for most of us.
Sand needs to be stirred (but not siphoned under the surface) so dead spots will not form. I like Miskairal's idea of siphoning it to a bucket, but fear that too much of that may set the nitrogen cycle back a bit and dislodge plants.
I took a look at
http://fins.actwin.com/search.cgi?page=1&search=sand
and felt a little like I was taking a stroll down nostalgia lane, in that several of the discussions were familiar to me. Never-the-less, virtually all of the insights below were quickly culled from the comments of others who have a lot more experience with sand. Among some of the more immediately useful insights (among the relatively few articles I skimmed) were:
A popular source for aquarists is sandblasting sand at Lowe's.
Sand and gravel are low-price commodities and are thus highly local. What is true for N. CA is not likely to be true for So. CA or AZ, much less GA or NY.
Keep the siphon ABOVE the sand, not in it. You are only trying to get the stuff laying on top of the sand, not in it.
I think they remove the fine dust to meet OSHA requirements for low silica inhalation. (Still rinsing dusty sand or gravel is best done outside, so little of that gets in your lungs - u.s.)
Don't use "white play sand". Its particles are too fine and contacts way too easily.
Yet a lot of others disagreed that all play sands were bad.
The best sand I found in my area was in a pool supply store. It's silica sand used in pool filters...
I think, maybe anaerobic, bacteria grows, decays
matter that finds it way down into the sand, and the process causes (toxic) gasses to form, which if it escapes to the water column can quickly foul and poison a tank.
Erik Pfingstner: actually I know that sand is a wonderful substrate for many cichlids. It is
a bit more work though because you should be cleaning up the sand weekly (at least every other week) under the rocks and at places the fish don't stir up by themselves. Yet 3-4 inches is a lot to keep gases from forming. 1.5 to 2 inches will be enough work.
For contents of sand see
http://minerals.usgs.gov/minerals/pubs/commodity/silica/
All the best!
u.s.
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