skippi

I love the substrate in you tank of orange lasar cory's. Now what is that and how d oyou take care of it. It looks like sand. I want to do a sand substrate butnone of the stores around me carry sand .I also want to try nd get some kind of fertilizer in my tanks to help my plants. The plants grow but just don't look as good as yours do. Can you help me out please..

Heidi

Butterfly

The substrate in the lasar cory tank is play sand, you can get it at any of the hardware stores for like 2.50 a 40lb bag. The only problem with play sand is you have to rinse it a 100 times(just seems like) to get all the dust out and it will still cloud your tank for a day or two.
My favorite by far is pool filter sand, you can get it at any of the pool stores. Its clean already and all you have to do is dump it in your tank and fill with water. Thats what I have in the 55G loach tank.
With a sand tank Malaysian trumpet snails are a must to keep the sand loose though.
I really don't fertilize my plants, I just plant them and the fish do the rest The bigger plants once in a while (about 2x a year) I put plant tabs under them. I think off-ice has given up on trying to convince me of a good fertizilation program and CO2 . If your really interested in learning about plant fertilization www.plantgeek.net is the best place
to learn. Yell if I can help any more
Carol

skippi

Is it possible to do a sand base in a loach tank?? I would worry that the loaches clown and stripped botias would eat the snails?? What kind of filtration would I have to use?? Is the hang on the back of the tank ok for sand?? Do you just treat it like gravel and clean and such as normal or is it more care.. I like my gravel but would really love to get into the sand substrate but can't seem to find alot Of info on how to do it right. I hate being a pest on here but you guys know so much and are so helpful to us all. I thank you all for putting up with all of my questions.

Heidi

Butterfly

Please allow me to talk about my tanks The loaches do eat the snails but they(the snails) multiply so fast they never get them all.
I have two HOB filters on the 55G and one HOB on the cory tank and they do just fine. The other Cory tank has Sahara sand (black and white) and has two HOB filters also. Never had any problems with them. Since the debris doesn't sink down in the sand like it does the gravel when you vac just wave the siphon above the sand and the debris just gets sucked right up. Any more questions just give a yell
Carol

skippi

Thanks Carol that will be my christmas project for myself... I hope i can find some sand around here.. I will start with ine of my smaller tanks first and if it works well then I will ahve a blast with the biggertanks... Thanks for the help will let you know my progress and if i have any other questions

Heidi

Butterfly

Cool! keep us posted And of course pics are always welcome.
carol