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changing sand.

Posted: Wed Jul 26, 2006 11:37 am
by cruwl
so im changing the sand in my tank, but i cant find any aquarium sand at all.

All i can find is the white live sand, or marine salt water sand, nothing else.

Anyone know where i can fins the sand best suited for congos?

Posted: Wed Jul 26, 2006 1:00 pm
by nmonks
I use silica sand, which you can buy at any garden centre. It costs very little (in my local store, I think it's 3-4 UKP for 25 kilos). Just be sure and use a nice smooth grade, rather than sharp sand. Clean it well, though, as it tends to be very silty. While the filter will remove the silt in a few days, you may as well make life easier. If you do get silt in the tank, clean filter wool removes it without any problems.

Cheers,

Neale

Posted: Thu Jul 27, 2006 1:53 am
by puffergeek
I would say that you should use the "softest" sand you can find... since they bury themselves, you don't want anything that might cause abrasions and/or irritation. For my congo I found a red sand and mixed it with a really smooth white and black sand sold for cichlids.

I've got a Christmas wrasse in my reef that buries himself... her fins got a bit irritated with an argonite based substrate we had, so I replaced all of the substrate with a very smooth coral sand (not a fun exercise BTW) and she is much happier.

I'd look for the "softest" sand and try it out...