Sand as Substrate

[bigbird]

Morning all,

My tanks at this stage all have the smallest available gravel as a substrate.
I now have available in a natural fresh water river, sand as substrate. Clean, no polutants etc, it come from a semi rainforst river around my area.
As sand is very dense, I intend to only have 3cm as a sustrate and then plant all plants in pots.
I would like to use sand as Apistos are sometimes sifters.
does anybody else use sand and could give me some advice please ?
cheers Jan-Kurt

 

[fishme.]

i use sand too. boil the sand first for not getting parasites into the aquarium and be sure that the sand will not raise the gh and the kh (it is the problem with every stone or sand we collect here in greece) you can test it by spilling on the sand a strong acid,if the sand bubble then it is not suitable for fish that need soft water

 

[curviceps]

Bigbird

My apistos love sifting through the sand, taking some in the mouth and spitting them out again.

I use pool filter sand which is pure silica sand and is therefore inert. I bought mine from Clark Rubber. Nice and cheap - I think less than $20 for a 20kg bag.

The colour is very light, see pic below:

 

[jose_vogel]

I use just sand (construction sand) in my breeding tanks (0.5 inch deep).

There, you can see why this lovely fishes are Geophagine (earth eaters)

 

[bigbird]

thanks all for your replies.
will try them out and report on success

cheers jan-kurt