Sand?

[watertiger21]

Okay, this is driving me crazy! Everyone says sand is what to use as substrate, but then I've also read from those same people about how it's bad because axies swallow it, it's hard to clean, and it may trap gas in it. If this is the case, then what should I use?

 

[Kaysie]

Anything you want that won't cause harm to your axolotl. Slate, sand, river rocks of appropriate size, nothing at all.

Personally, I use coarse sand. It's not hard to clean, and as long as it's not too deep, it won't trap gas.

 

[Gromky]

Don't worry about hydrogen sulfide gas building up with a thin layer of sand (an inch should be just fine, perhaps 2" is ok). Especially if there's turnover of the sand, you can go thicker (my planted tank has about 5" of substrate, but snails turn it over enough that it stays aerobic). The main concern is that you likely won't have turnover in your tank, so I'd shoot for about an inch.

In my axie tank I use large river rock. I bought a 5 gallon bucket and hand-selected the largest stones as I cleaned them. They're all so big they can't be swallowed, but they're a bit of a pain to clean (I have to move them around to get poop up from under them).

I love the slate bottom idea as well. I'd love to do that at some point, because I don't like the look of bare glass.

 

[natjobe]

I started off with river rock in my first axie tank, that lasted about a week when I realized I couldn't plant anything and I was a severe pain in the a**! I switched to sand. I LOVE it, I love it so much I switched my fish tank to sand as well. As far as impaction from sand, this may be gross but they poop out fairly large poop, I am sure that pieces of digested worm come out bigger then the sand ever would. And really in nature I am sure they would pass sand/dirt all the time, they do come from a lake.



"In my axie tank I use large river rock. I bought a 5 gallon bucket and hand-selected the largest stones as I cleaned them. They're all so big they can't be swallowed, but they're a bit of a pain to clean (I have to move them around to get poop up from under them)."

 

[Gromky]

I can understand natjobe. I run sand in my planted tank, and have run it at times in my oscar tank and elsewhere. Generally, I love sand.

But I don't run my axie tank as planted. I switch in Sagitteria lat. from my main planted tank, but they don't thrive and I remove them every few weeks. I have enough growth I don't need to try to make them survive.

 

[CJ Hathaway]

Hi, we have two adult axolotls that have slate on the bottom of their tank, then we have two other axolotls in a tank with large pebbles on the bottom, these have recently had babies, so we are upgrading them to a 4ft tank, weve seen so many tanks that have sand on the bottom and it looks really good with the axolotls, we was just wondering why type of sand we would use? and can you get different coloured sand?
Thanks :happy: