Substrate- Sand

I have never had sand before, so I have a few questions about it:

-What sand do you recommend? I've heard of using pool filter sand, play sand, and aquarium sand.
-How do you wash it before you put it in the tank?
-How do you vacuum the sand when you do water changes?
-This is kind of off topic, but do cories need sand?
-How deep?
-How do you make sure you don't get too many gas pockets in the sand?

Thank you for the help

 

Pool filter sand and diamond blasting sand work just fine. To wash the sand I put a bit in the bucket then used a shower head and sprayed into the bucket until the water was clear. To vacuum sand I simply wave the siphon above the sand to stir up the waste and let the siphon suck it up. I also use a mesh on my siphon as not to get any snails lol. I only do about two inches or so of sand.

All scaless fish like cory cats, and kuhlI loaches should have sand as a substrate. They like to sift through the sand, and it's soft enough not to damage their barbels.

Now as far as gas pockets go I personally bought a few Malaysian trumpet snails which help stir up the sand. Many people see them as pests though, they can breed fast. I also have many live plants whose roots go into the sand which can help. My kuhlI loaches love to sift through the sand too. Basically my sand is constantly stirred up by something.

 

I've used pool filter glass balls works great and gives a crystal snow like look to the substrate

 

Pool filter sand and medium grit black diamond blasting sand are the two recommended "unconventional" sand substrates. They should also be rinsed very thoroughly before being put into your tank if you don't want a mess. Just for perspective, a 50lb bag of blasting sand runs around $8, where 50lb of aquarium sand will run around $60. Black also will help the colors of your fish pop as they will darken to "blend in" with the substrate.

You wash sand by adding it to a 5 gallon bucket and running water into it. Get some sort of stirrer (your hand will work) and mix it around in the bucket until the water runs clear.

There is no substitute to you actually cleaning your tank, which would be easily done with a gravel vac. All you have to do is stir up the food on the bottom into the water and not suck up sand.

Cories will be fine in gravel or sand. They appear to be happier in sand as they can root around in it and it is not as hard on their barbels.

You can add as much sand as you want. If you want plants, I think that I have seen 1.5"-2" being recommended.

You make sure you don't get gas pockets by buying uniformly shaped sand (pool filter/blasting/aquarium sand), and by stirring the sand around every once in a while. You can easily stir it with a gravel vac that isn't pulling any water out of the tank.

 

Advantage of PFS is that the grains are shaped / polished so water can easily penetrate (needed in a filter!) so chance of gasses building up is 0,0