jlewin_80

I hope one of you have experienced this before but I have a 30 gallon tank with 3-5 mm gravel. The gravel is somewhat light in colour. I would like to mix black sand in with the gravel but I'm not sure if it will mix well or if all the sand will work it's way to the bottom. Any ideas or experience with what it might do?

Shaina

Over time the sand will work it's way to the bottom, yes. Even my Eco-complete, which consists of fine sand to small gravel, has settled as such over time.

How long it takes depends on the size range of the particles in question and how much they are disturbed.

hop2jr

I use a sand gravel mix with more sand than gravel. I found that when I gravel vac the larger gravel ends up on the bottom and the sand stays on top because the sand stays in the vac chamber longer and falls out last.

jlewin_80

There are a couple of reasons I want to do this. First of all I want to use black sand to bring out the colour of my fish. I however, have a black ghost knife and using solely black sand will make him invisible. The gravel I have right now also does not work for my peacock eel as he can't bury into it. I am worried that he will injure himself trying. Any ideas on a happy medium? I live on an island and am quite limited with choices and have a low budget to work with.

griffin

would using a mixture of sands work? like mostly black and some white? or a different color altogether? typical sand colored sand is probably cheapest though

prairielilly

What about instead of mixing the sand and gravel together, you had different 'zones' of different substrates? They'd mix together a bit at the boundaries but shouldn't be too hard to keep mostly separate. (Probably look better w. similar colours though)