Pool Silica Sand

A question regarding substrate cleaning.
I added normal pool filter silica sand to my tank, now i'm thinking, not so bright an idea. i'm guessing the first time i use a gravel filter i'll be removing most of my substrate as well... how does one siphon this fine silica without sucking it out?

A question on substrate nutrition.
This stuff obviously has no plant nutrition, i'm pretty sure it's sterile stuff, so, any suggestions on what would be a good addon to the substrate in a currently empty, cycling tank? i want to make a community tank that will be planted to an extent as well. I'm not used to doing planting UNDER WATER, in a pot, semi damp i can add bounceback (chicken poo stuff) no worries, but how to add anything in water osaked sand that the fish wont choke on an die (chicken poo isnt an option here, i guess, hehe)

A general planting question, should i add other substrate, should i replace the substrate? is there options where i keep the tank cycling and just add, or does the remedy involve draining the tank?

 

Plenty of people use the pool silica sand with planted tanks and it works fine. Use the Prof's miracle druppels and your plants will thrive! Nah, I'm pretty sure you can't use chicken poo Perhaps some of the 'plant' guys can explain what they use.

 

Rolfes Silica Sand. Available from your local Builders warehouse in various grit sizes. Should be ~50 for a 40kg bag....

Then get some Flourite from Animal Kingdom Attebury when they eventually get stock in

Rinse both THOROUGHLY, otherwise your water will be very turbid

Add Flourite to your tank, top off with some sand and fill with water :blink1:

 

I have read on the web that if you have a rabbit or marmote and things like that you can use one of the droppings and put one under every plant thats planted. This is like they said "in the old days" they used the droppings to fertilize the plants. Can this still be done or not?

 

Very interesting, but gross in practice!:bigsmile::bigsmile:

 

And all the ammonia that's released into the tank as the poo starts dissolving/degrading?

Pass for me thanks

 

lol, i was never planning on, or thinking about adding any poo or organic matter as a fertilizer,

Mind you i did read that er.. whats it called... lite something... perlite?... hang on

 

vermiculite. apparently when you soak vermiculite and add it into the sand, you get fertilization.

But it gets siphoned out, so, what i read was, you put a bag of vermiculite in or near a filter or powerhead, and get the same fertilization perks?

 

Just use silica sand and ass liquid fertz as needed.

 

I have also heard of guys adding iron nails in the sand as well. They put one nail under the root of each plant. not sure if this works. Never tried it myself. Then again, my tank is not yet 'platned'.

 

i'm sure i read on a post here somewhere, someone said to add a bolt under some plant that'll like the iron.

Okay, so the silica will stay, i might think of getting some of that Flourite stuff, looks like it'll work?, read up on it a little bit. seems like its a brown colour? might add some more earthy colour to this silica sand...

NOW, how do you guys siphon and clean this fine sand? i'm pretty sure a siphon will just suck out the sand with the water and ditritus?

 

I am still a noob, but what I do is just hold the siphon as few centimeters from the substrate. That seems to suck up all the loose muck from the bottom. You can't use something like a gravel cleaner. It will just suck up all the sand.
HIH

 

the gravel vac i got doesnt suck up my silica sand

 

i'm probably gonna check mine tomorrow, just to see what it does... haven't sucked anything yet, tank is still "empty" and clean, no need to siphon yet

 

Just try it for yourself. The silica sand is surprisingly difficult to suck up. On occasion I stick the gravel vac deep into the substrate of silica sand just to draw out some muck from underneath the top layer. Then as you lift it slowly, the silica sand starts falling downwards while the muck gets pulled up with the water into the gravel vac.

At one point I had some BBA growing on a few pieces of silica sand. I could not suck those pieces up. I had to stick my hand in to pull them out.

 

If you ever in JHB, you are welcome to have a look at my setups

In my Malawi tank I used a mixture of Hydroton,Vermiculite, Perlite and River Sand. The Perlite was a bad bad idea, a lot of it ended up floating to the top of the tank, looked a lot like polystyrene.

+1 on the fine silica not being siphoned out

 

I have the same. The wider gravel vac works very well actually, becuase if you stick the vac slightly in the gravel, it suck the gravel up about 3cm, churns is up for you, and releases the muck. You then lift the gravel, and it drops the sand. The narrow thin gravel vac is slightly more difficult, because you have the same kind of volume of water being sucked out, but the suction is higher because the pipe is smaller. This sometimes sucks up gravel.

 

i decided i might as well do a water change today, so i took out my Narrow, thin -only one i got- gravel siphon, and sucked out some water, happily i found that although when i stick it in the sand, it eventually starts to suck up sand, but if i lift it out of the sand and let it hang a bit, the sand drifts down slowly. if i keep it in too long the whole tube becomes filled with churning sand, but i checked the two buckets i removed, no sand either time. So, apparently you can do some extensive hoovering of sand, and no damage done, xcept now you have to reflatten everything

 

Most people are addicted to rescaping their tanks every now and then. I think if you change the substrate contours by gravel vacuuming, you end up with a new look every week!

 

Lol. Yeah, but in the end i want a nice, richly planted tank. . I'll see how it goes. What ferts are best for a planted tank? Soil based, or liquid ferts?