frogster221

im going to get a 55 gallon tank and i wanted it to be a planted community tank wahatwould work better a sand or gravel substraight

lilsoccakid

i just made a 55 gal planted community and used sand, and i wouldnt go back to gravel anytime soon. you can check it out in the members tanks section if u want

frogster221

doesnt sand have to be either raked or have some sort of snail going through it to prevent it from forming harmful gases? how do you clean sand

lilsoccakid

i stir up 1/3 of the tank a week. and to clean it u just hold the greavel vac 1/4 of an inch above it

jamison

I was wondering the same thing! Thank you for the helpful advice!

lilsoccakid

no prob i really like the sand. it looks great and once set up it simple to maintain!

ps. if you have MTS (malysian trumpet snails( sry for the bad spelling)), they will stir the sand for you, so you dont need to stir it

jamison

I just stirred it myself for the first time, and it was actually alot of fun. I also have a crayfish who moves it aroun quite a bit. Today is the first day I've had sand and it's way better! I'll never use anything else!

steveangela1

I don't know if I am doing it the right way or not but I just use my syphon and I stir it up and vaccum it just like my crushed coral in my other tanks.. I only have one tank w/ all sand... it seems to keep it clean. I don't get maybe a teaspoon of actual sand in the bucket every time I do that.

frogster221

how deep can i make the sand and still have lots of water space? because i want to make these cool caves and mini mountains with it and the sand isnt very sturdy under an inch

FL CommunityFans

2" of substrate is the norm I think. I have 3" in my progressing 55g, but that's simply because all my rocks take a lot of floor space, causing the sand to pile up higher than it would without the rocks

frogster221

is there a limit of how high i can make the sand though

lilsoccakid

nope, you can make it as high as u want, its just gunna take away from the amount of water in the tank, mines about 2-inches deep overall, with some places 5 inches and some down to 1, just from how i made it

frogster221

cool thanks for all the help