Kuhli Loaches: Sand vs. Gravel?

[Hordfest]

just curious on your guy's thoughts on the best medium for Kuhli Loaches.

[Red]

sand for sure, they love it. I have them in a 75 and they always buried in it and playing around with it.

[William]

I agree, sand. They love it and it looks great!

[Hordfest]

ok awesome! thanks for the replies! and pool sand will work correct? i believe i read that elsewhere on this site.

[Red]

Yeah make sure you clean it well though..

[Amazon]

be careful not to suck it up with the gravel vac . What i do is get a low powered gravel vac for cleaning the gravel and a stronger siphon for water changes. Good luck!thumbs2:

[Hordfest]

thanks! i just read this article [Only Registered Users Can See Links.] and it gave me a nice description of cleaning the sand so I think I'll be good to go and I'm sure the Kuhli's will love it!

[Fishguy2727]

I use Estes' Marine Sand. It needs no cleaning and is no more expensive than gravel.

They like sand but also like small places to pile into and hangout (large pebbles, driftwood, etc.).

[Hordfest]

i would love to find a big piece of driftwood. are there any special requirements for driftwood? like can i just pluck a piece off the beach and throw it in an aquarium or what lol

[Heliwyr]

i would love to find a big piece of driftwood. are there any special requirements for driftwood? like can i just pluck a piece off the beach and throw it in an aquarium or what lol

You can, pretty much. Just:

-Scrub all the sand and crud off of it.
-Boil it for a long time (or put it in the dishwasher and run it with out soap a bunch of times)
-Soak it for several weeks to a month. (Depending on the size, location on the beach--if it's in the dunes, it will probably have less salt than one found in the surf).

[Fishguy2727]

I only trust stuff bought for aquariums. Malaysian driftwood usually sinks immediately.

[Hordfest]

any recommendations on where to buy Malaysian driftwood? I found a few sites, but I'm not sure which ones are trustworthy or not.

[Red]

Petsolutions.com is great and i have bought a lot of driftwood from there.

[Hordfest]

i took a look at the site, all kinds of great stuff!! also, is it any harder to grow live plants in sand then it is other substrates? or should I just stick to fake plants?

[Fishguy2727]

Actually sand is the best substrate for plants.

[Hordfest]

awesome! didn't know that but it's something i will definitely keep in mind.

[Slytherin170892]

Actually sand is the best substrate for plants.

How come? I thought sand doesn't have any nutrients, and anything for the plants to grab onto...?

[WhiteDevil]

Mine prefer gravel/eco complete over sand, they hide all the time in the sand bed and when i switched to a flourite/eco complete mix they started to breed and were out nearly all the time, gave them a little diy kuhlli den and the rest is history, usually 2-3 dozen new babies a month.


How is sand the best planting substrate? its inert.

[Fishguy2727]

That depends on the sand, but I was refering to the grain size. There are fluorite based sands. I always used silica based sand and used root tabs to make it beneficial for the plants.

[SmokeyCFH]

I had red gravel for my Kuhli loach and i could never see the little dude, sand is a way better choice...home depot has 50lbs bags for 5 bucks, I used one of those bags in my 60G and it works very well.