Plecos and Sand

[NetCop]

My wife is switching her substrate from gravel to sand.

Is it okay for Plecos to be in with the sand or should they be moved to another tank? 

[fyrebull]

All my tanks have Carb sand, and bn pleco's have no problems.

[NetCop]

Thanks, thats what I thought.
Okay, one more question about sand in this tank:
How deep should she go with the sand?

I ask because I think you want to have it deep enough when putting this in but I know that it adds up in weight and would hate to see the bottom of her tank go on her
(*if it means anything, the tank is a 10 gallon)

[fyrebull]

Thanks, thats what I thought.
Okay, one more question about sand in this tank:
How deep should she go with the sand?

I ask because I think you want to have it deep enough when putting this in but I know that it adds up in weight and would hate to see the bottom of her tank go on her
(*if it means anything, the tank is a 10 gallon)

My 10 Gal has about 2-3 inch's of sand go with the "Carb sugar sand" it rinses easier and looks nicer when you mould and sweep it around rocks and plants

[hamstercaster]

Thanks, thats what I thought.
Okay, one more question about sand in this tank:
How deep should she go with the sand?

I ask because I think you want to have it deep enough when putting this in but I know that it adds up in weight and would hate to see the bottom of her tank go on her
(*if it means anything, the tank is a 10 gallon)

I wouldn't worry much about the weight of the sand.  Most of us who keep cichlids have many pounds of rocks in our tank.  I for exemple have a 140 pounds or more of rock in my 94 gallon without any problems.. and that's on top of about 2 to 3 inches of substrate.  Tank bottoms are very strong and can usually hold quite a bit of weight.

[Quatro]

One point concerning rocks on sand.  If you have cihclids, or other diggers, you may want to buy some eggcrate (the plastic grate stuff in ceiling lights) to prevent them from digging under the rocks.  I just setup a sandy tank with eggcrate (bad job on my part) and had one rock topple over. 

[Dr. Ashtray]

I usually don't go deeper than 3/4 to a full inch of sand.  I stick with silicate-based sands I find locally around the Wakefield area.  It takes a lot of rinsing but looks great with lots of igneous rock chips that look amazing.  I would also have about a CM of plant substrate under the sand.  This helps with the plant roots.  If you are not planning on having live plants don't worry about that part of it.  All of my 16 tanks have this configuration with no difficulties.

Jeffrey...

[NetCop]

Nothing to plant, so its only the sand.
The tank now has the gravel out and the sand in and it's giving me ideas now.
I'll make sure she takes some pics sometime soon.
Now if she could only find someone selling those Greco-Roman ruins type decor that she wants, it's going to look quite nice!

[KatarinaH]

I think it's about time I post a comment in a thread about my own tank eh?

So yeah, I've finally taken some pictures since the sand was put in the tank and the water settled.

Here are a few pictures.

The first one is NetCop's go figure his one picture is better than all 50ish of the ones I took

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[White Lightning]

I love the look of the fine sand in a tank. I have some in my 60 gallon tank but I refuse to out any plecos in there due to the simple fact that plecos create quite a bit of waste.
I had a pleco in there before and after only three days, you could really see how much of a mess he had caused as thier bodily waste really shows up on white sand. At least with the gravel, you don't really see it.

[KatarinaH]

I'm thinking I should probably remove the plecos as it's a dwarf puffer tank. That is why the switch from gravel to sand.

[fyrebull]

Nice job, looks great