Coloured Sand

i have purple sand in my tank, if your sand is to fine it will compact which is not good, mine has been in my tank for over a year, when i first got the sand i put it into knee high stockings and washed it heaps, then let it soak in buckets for about a week, then washed again, i then spread it out in a spare tank i had and kept changing the water every couple of days,once the water was clear in the tank i let it settle for 2 weeks and then it was ready for the tank to be set up and cycled. it takes a lot of work to stop the colour running but it was worth it, as for how much i needed 4 bags for my 3 foot tank but mine is only 1 inch deep, you really need to make sure the colour has stop leaching from the sand as this is very toxic, hope this helps
 
I have black moon sand. I rinsed it in a sock tell it came clean. The only thing I don't like is it is hard to see the poo if you want to do a spot cleaning.
 
Oh no i didnt do that to my coloured gravel. I know your not sopposed to use gravel but its really small but will it still harm Gill. will the colour still wash away because why would they sell it like that if you have to rinse it. The gravel is new also.
 
Gravel for axies I don't agree on for two reasons you get a lot of gunk builds up between and beneath it and they swallow it and it can cause possible blockage problems or spend months trying to rid it from there systems.

4 of our axies used to be on gravel with previous owners. We bought them last year in January and March respectively and within a few hours of having them just in containers, no substrate they pooed out several pieces of gravel between them. It looked very painful watching! (well I certainly cringed especially as the sizes ranged from a .5cm up to 1.5cm gravel and round glass pebbles.)

For the last 12 months I still find bits of gravel and haven't found any pebbles since December. The gravel was a combination of brightly fluorescent and darker painted looking gravel and natural gravel. The coloured stuff flaked of the gravel, I can only assume when they swallowed it bits came of in their insides as some of the gravel had half the "paint" on and the stone/gravel itself is a white colour.

Honestly, no matter how much you watch your axies you will never necessarily see them swallow and spit out the gravel. I've been lucky that our axies haven't had any major problems with the gravel and especially the pebble pooing but at worst they could have had a blockage, possible prolapse and died (I have seen cases on this forum of prolapses and it's not pretty).

If you do want to keep the gravel, Beata, another axie owner went and siliconed the bottom of her tank and pressed the gravel bits into it. It looks quite good, also see this thread which I think is a great idea too that I found this morning that Jennewt posted using similar idea but with sand. http://www.caudata.org/forum/messages/793/77098.html?1170154180
 
Dam, i paid a lot for that gravel but maybe i can find some coloured sand somewhere.
 
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