I finally swithched to sand!!!!!!!!

[jman]

Sand from my local Home Depot was used to change my dwarf cichlid tank into the best looking 30gallon ever. The fish love the sand they changed colors as soon as they touched the water. The rams are blowing the sand because with the big gravel stones i had they couldn't really move anything around, now they do what they want. The cory cats are looking a little more active although they were already super active since the day i got them. The hardest part with this conversion was the cleaning of the sand!!!!!!!!! pheeewwwww!!!!! so glad i passed that phase because i was burning up in the sun. left a little gravel in the tank underneath the sand so that the plants could establish longer roots. I really like it-it was very affordable.

[sergo]

well, where are the pix?
i'll end up doing the same thing as i slowly (very slowly) convert my 55 into a cichlid tank. what exactly did you do to clean the sand?

[jman]

to clean out the sand i took two buckets and filled about 25% of them with sand and took a big spoon and water hose. I took the big spoon to stir the sand around while using the water hose at full pressure to spray as much access stuff as possible. After repeating the steps a couple of times by pouring out the floating dirt in the water i took the sand and put it in the tank than afterwards moved onto the next bucket. I knew when i was finished cleaning the sand when the water i poured out was generally clean to my eyes.

[YaYgoldFish]

Oh man i use to have sand..it looked great but was a pain cleaning it..maybe it was because i had turtles tho lol.

[Lady Hobbs]

I just poured a half a bucket full of sand, filled with water right in my sink and stirred it with my hands. Drained it and refilled it 3 times each bucket full. It was clear about an hour after turning the filters on.

[jman]

i don't think i really needed to clean the sand as much as i did because the filters didn't pick up the sand it just picked up the access stuff and it was clear too within an hour. it's so cool watching them blast the sand around a little. I recommend it to anyone who is in the same situation as me with the fish not looking to happy swimming around.

Do fish use the sand to there personal aid?- i think i heard it somewhere before

[Severus]

I just did my 10 gallon in the same sand. i love it. My corys love it too

[Juannie]

I've got sand in my mixed tropical tank and have so for the past 4 years, my fish love it. I even have it in with my oscar and pleco and they seem to love it too. It's been much easier to clean than stones and I just move it around to ensure there's no gas bubbles trapped. It's easy to siphon off the "crap" off the top too.