# Substrate Question



## tac5man (Dec 16, 2016)

Hello friends!

I am just starting to build my first Cichlid tank (55 gallon tank that my wife got me during Black Friday) and I am doing most of my research on the internet. Unfortunately the internet is comprised of many different schools of thought in regards to everything. I am trying to find out which type of substrate to put at the bottom of my tank. I would like darker substrate to make the colors of my fish stand out. Any recommendations?


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## Aaron S (Apr 4, 2015)

So your substrate choices are gravel or sand (crushed coral is also an option but it is both light and also just like gravel). The main difference is gravel is more difficult to clean and gives a "rougher" look to the bottom. I, and probably most of the rest of the people on this forum, would strongly recommend sand. I have had two larger tanks now in my life, one was crushed coral and one was sand and I would never go back to gravels again.

The question of color is another story. So most people try to get cheap sand and cheap sand is always an off white/brown color. It is definitely not dark. The black tahiti moon sand is the darkest you can buy and it is fairly expensive. I offer you two things to think about. First is you can mix sands to get the contrast you want. In my tank, I have 100lbs of pool filter sand (off white) and 10lbs of tahiti moon which produces a really nice gray look to the sand. The second thing is that you should consider the background too because your fish will very often be viewed with the background behind them instead of the sand. I chose a black background for the same reasons you are looking into the substrate.


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## tac5man (Dec 16, 2016)

thank you sir! I'm going to go to my local fish shop and see what they have available as far as sand is concerened


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## DJRansome (Oct 29, 2005)

Also the grain size of the sand is important to making your maintenance easier. 20 grain is perfect and pool filter sand is 20 grain. It's also clean (still wash it, but it's much easier to wash). Not to mention cheap. And it has the natural sand color, more like the Lake. Well I am assuming African cichlids here and I shouldn't.

My first tank I bought expensive aragonite for appearance and buffer. No buffer. I do have black sand in one tank...I will remove it next time I redo the tank. It shows too much dirt and some cichlids "color-down" to blend with the dark color and appear dirty. For one example, my leleupi were sooty over black and brilliant orange over white/beige.

Now I go to an aggregate supplier (for sand blasting) to get the perfect 20 grain silica sand (a.k.a. pool filter sand). I have it in 8 of my tanks.


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## tanker3 (May 18, 2015)

If you "MUST" have a dark color, try and get Black blasting sand, used in sand blasting. It is very fine, and will need a lot of washing to remove all the small dust particles. It is a semi shinny black.

I like the lighter color of pool filter sand. It is so much easier to clean, just 2-3 times and it is clean. IMO, it looks more natural.
I have 2 tanks, and one is black sand and the other is PFS. I like the PFS more, and may switch out the other one someday.


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## Steve C (Oct 9, 2011)

If you do go with black then get the Black Diamond blasting sand from TSC. I have used that in a few tanks before and it doesn't even take any washing. I agree with what DJRansome said though in that black sand has a tendency to color down fish. I went from white sand to black sand in my Hap tank and the colors were not as nice on the fish so I mixed in 50/50 black & white and that helped bring the colors back some. Once I move them out of the 75g into the new bigger tank I plan to go back to white sand though because it shows colors best IMO.


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## tanker3 (May 18, 2015)

!


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