About sand

[daniel]

Hi,
I have a male axolotl in a fairly large tank with a bare floor. im thinking about putting in sand but im wondering how i would go about it and how long i would have to leave it to settle before putting Benny back in because im sure it would cloud up the water for a while.

also, do you think i would get away with adding the sand without emptying the tank? obviously removing the axie before hand.

just trying to find solutions that dont involve a 100% water change and starting over again with the setup

Thank you

Dan

 

[kapo]

What you could do is siphon some of the water into a bucket or buckets, put axie in one, decos and whatever in other. Then once you've done the sand, put decos etc and axie back in tank, pour water carefully (so it doesn't stir sand up)/ or siphon the water from buckets back into the tank.

We found it was easier to pour the sand in while water was already in it. It didn't cloud as much as other way round. We poured it in rows/lengths of the tank till it was covered then added the decos. Axies were put in a few hours later.

Ours took a few hours but some tanks get cloudy, prob depending on sand.

 

[daniel]

thanks very much Kapo. Hopefully i'll be getting sand on wednesday. it just looks too bare without substrate.

 

[matthew]

or you could drain the water (after removing your axie, obviously) - place the sand in, place a large dinner plate ontop of the sand and pour your water onto the plate - that way the majority of the force is absorbed on the plate, and barely any sand gets kicked up at all. Someone on this forum mentioned that, forgot who, but it worked a charm when kitting out my 4ft tank.

 

[daniel]

Excelant idea. thats the kind of thing i woudnt of thought of doing in a million years. Thanks

 

[morrissey]

The black sand which I bought for my axie, it also mentioned this method at the back of it's plastic bag!

 

[greta]

Hey also washing the sand really well helps to stop cloudiness... i changed from gravel to sand a couple of months ago. To wash the sand i put it in an old pillow case and ran the hose over it