# Plain play sand.



## F1 yellow (Aug 25, 2008)

Hello everyone,

so my tank cycle about three weeks ago 
i added 6 cynotilapia afra cobue two days later
and 7 labidochromis caeruleus 6 days later
i have play sand as substrate and about 90 lbs
of granite rock, the yellow labs love the sand
but to me the sand still looks kind of Plain,
so my question is do you has anyone here mix
play sand with anything else?
like crush shells, crush holey rock or crush coral?

Ph 8.0
ammonia 0.00
Nitrite 0.00
nitrate 10.0


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## 24Tropheus (Jun 21, 2006)

Tend to mix it with other types of play sand (different shades) or "silver sand" to get the mixed look. Tend to find if you mix it with crushed coral the coral works its way to the top so you get the worst of both.
The tendency of play sand to pack down and the way crushed coral has an unnatural look to me.

I really must try pool filter sand sometime (some folk rave about it).


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## meg_cummins (Dec 17, 2008)

I am new to cichlid keeping and was told to get play sand by one person, crushed coral by another. not knowing which to believe i went for a bag of both, and while i love how it looks as the fish stir things up, i'm frustrated by cleaning it. I use a python for tank maintence and when i try to vacuum the botton i just end up with a sink drain full of sand, which is probably not the best thing for the pipes. Any ideas as to how to prevent this ?


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## Afishionado (Jun 6, 2006)

Pythons are not ideal for vacuuming for that reason imho. Use the Python for the bulk of the water change, but get a gravel-vac (as cheap as you can find) for the vacuuming. Alternately, if your tank hapens to be near a garage equipped with a sump in the floor drain, remove the cover and syphon into that; you can vacuum with the hose and any sand you pick up will just accumulate in the sump where it can be cleaned out once a year or so.


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## Grey Legion (Apr 11, 2005)

I use a python to do all my tank vacuuming and no problems, first thing to naote with sand is about 98% of the waste will sit on top, 2nd thing I do not use the vacuum attachment instead I use the tube/hose only I simply hover it above the sand to draw the waste of the surface, sometime I use a slow cirlcling motion to stir things up. I do get a bit of sand but nothing to worry about.

Take your time and you'll do fine.


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## Justin1982 (May 28, 2008)

About 5 years ago I used play sand in one of my tanks. Turned out to be a huge mistake. I had 2 powerheads at the top of my 90 gal. which still pushed the sand about. Even with without powerheads all it took was an active fish at the bottom of the tank to whip up enough sand and find its way into one of the filters before it had a chance to settle. 
If you plan on keeping a tank with plenty of water circulation you will regret playsand. Unless you get impellers for free and dont mind cleaning sand out of you HOB filters.


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