tighidden

Does bacteria colonize in sand? Also is the cycling process any diffrent with sand than with gravel?

jsalemi

Bacteria live on any surface in the tank, so yes, they'll live in sand. They're a lot smaller than even a grain of sand, which could have hundreds of bacteria living on it. In fact, there are high-end fluidized bed filters that use sand as the biological filter medium. The cycling process is the same, as far as I know.

Be sure to use the right sand, though. I believe the recommendation here is to use pool sand, not playground sand. The pool sand is cleaner.

Chief_waterchanger

Jsalemi is absolutely correct in all aspects of his post.

armadillo

I heard that 'fake' sand (it's substrate made of really tiny round pebbles, as opposed to sand's tiny sharp pebbles) was ultimate for bacteria colonising. Strange, as the surface area of millions of grains of sand would be greater, but that's what I've heard.