# What color sand for my particular setup



## bozz77 (Sep 22, 2008)

I really want my fish to stand out in my new 120 gallon

What I have is a LED double bright system with reddish dark colored rock, anubias plants, and Java fern what colore sand white, or black?

My fish are all mbuna most are electric yellow, red zebra, and demasoni with a few others that I am going to put in such as polit and elongatus jewel spot (if i can find any)

Thanks


----------



## vann59 (Jun 20, 2011)

If you really want your fish to stand out, go for better lighting. Either t5 quad or really high end LED will work. Adding an actinic bulb in the t5 would make the blues really stand out. As for the sand, it's a matter of taste. Some fish may darken or lighten their shading with a certain substrate shade, but there is no clear answer on that. Pool filter sand is usually a neutral buff color and is cheap and very popular. And you can easily see how to clean it. I would say it's probably the best all purpose sand.


----------



## yamadog (Oct 7, 2012)

Before I made the switch to sand, I had beige/brown colored gravel. Prety dark in fact. My pair of firemouths were really nicely colored up , the usual silver body with bright red bellies. The sand I swithched to is the typical light colored pfs. Now (6 months later) the firemouths are almost white in color with very light pink bellies. I believe that if you want more brightly colored fish, you need darker subsrate. Jason


----------



## DJRansome (Oct 29, 2005)

vann59 said:


> Some fish may darken or lighten their shading with a certain substrate shade, but there is no clear answer on that.


This has been my experience...leleupi darkened over black (turned gray) and brightened over white. Same with cyps.

I do love the black though and I use it for my Malawi.


----------



## anthraxx4200 (Aug 16, 2012)

i personally would get a cpl bags of lets say petsmart brown sand, and mix it in with some crushed coral substrate. then you get the nice color (white tends to wash out photos and colors in my experience) and it will dbl as a buffer. just my thoughts, done this method on a ten gallon and it worked great. 1/3 brown sand 2/3 argonite/crushed coral


----------



## ratbones86 (Jun 29, 2012)

or get black and white sand and mix them so you get both effects


----------



## CrypticLifeStyle (Dec 14, 2009)

Darker sand for darker fish, white sand for bright colored fish seems to work for me.


----------

