Plants in sand

[briannasaurdiff]

So I've got a 60 that is lightly planted the plants seem to be doing good be could be better I don't wanna run co2 but will they be OK will high light and fertilizer. Also sand air pockets! I've read so much mixed crap about them. R they really bad?

 

[Livebearer]

Try root tabs, U can get them on E-bay as sand alone will not supply their roots enough Potash and micro nutrients to flourish well and algae will eventually take over. I have used garden clay soil under the sand and worked well IF you don't disturb it! Try "Turface" (TM) it's a sports field dressing you see around baseball diamonds and pathways. I swear by it!!! The 15 gallon in MY Avitar is sand only and does not grow much well either.

 

[Cory]

Sand makes it hard for plants to thrive. It compacts too much and suffocates roots. Roots need oxygen too. The pockets of "air" you are experiencing are hydrogen sulfide. In the quantities it can kill fish. To see how well sand grows plants just look at any beach. Usually lots of forest, then where the sand is there are virtually no plants at all.

 

[pbmax]

Some plants thrive in sand, some don't, I've found. My jungle vals go crazy in sand with no root tabs at all, even super-fine sand. I agree that it's not an ideal substrate, but there are plants that will tolerate it - especially with root tabs.

As Livebearer mentioned, turface is good stuff, so is seachem flourite - but use a sand cap as it doesn't easily hold plants down by itself. It'll retain nutrients better than sand and it'll give roots some space. It's non-nutritive in and of itself; you'll still need root tabs for optimal growth.

I've never suffered issues with air pockets in sand and I have a couple of tanks with just sand where it's up to 3" deep. I do keep a ton of vals in those tanks along with sizable malaysian trumpet snail populations to keep it stirred.

As for high light without CO2 - you'll need a good amount of fast-growing plants to out-compete algae in that situation. Floating plants like water lettuce, frogbit, even duckweed help here, as does hornwort. You'll have to dump a bunch out every few weeks so they don't dim the whole tank though.

 

[MattArmstrong]

Years ago I once ran a 29g tank with pool filter sand 2-4" deep. I ran DIY co2 from some yeast, and stuff was great for about a year. I did no root tabs, no fert dosing, and the plants grew okay, but I can't say the sand bed was full of roots. If I remember right, java fern and anubias did okay, but that stuff was attached to driftwood. The plants in the sand did not do well. No real root growth in the sand to speak of. Definitely a low light tank (some kind of flourescent).

Anyway, I began to notice bubbles from the sand. Read up on hydrogen sulfide in sand tanks. One of my otherwise healthy Corydoras died in a rather dramatic fashion (for a few minutes darting about the tank as if terrified, then belly up, stone cold dead). I did more reading over the next few days. I kept seeing bubbles. Something said to prevent it, you stick a pencil or stick in the sand to mix an aerate the sand in lower levels. I did that, and my 8 cories were all dead in the same fashion within 20 minutes.

Don't mix up a deep sand substrate!

I believe that people make deep sand work, but with preconditions. E.g. http://www.wetwebmedia.com/ca/volume_7/volume_7_1/dsb.html says use plants, MTS, blackworms and even planaria to keep the first inch or so mixed up. And, whatever you do, don't disturb the lower layers -- go as far as cutting off plants at the base instead of pulling them up, etc.

 

[briannasaurdiff]

I have Corries and khuli loaches that dig through my sand for me

 

[Ali]

Never knew Hydrogen Sulfide was a concern, glad I do now! I have cories, plecos, ottos, and geophagus in my sand tank. Pretty much everything in there loves digging around so hopefully I dn't have too much to worry about.

 

[MattArmstrong]

I have been doing more reading for my own tank and it seems that the "play sand" is most troublesome because it is so fine and compacts so much. I think that is what I used back when I had trouble with Hydrogen Sulfide. "Pool filter sand" or other larger sands seem to have more positive results.

 

[pbmax]

That makes sense. I'm using pool filter sand and lane mountain sand (which is about the same granularity) in my older tanks. Play sand is pretty fine; I have a sandbox full of that stuff. Deeper than 2" too...

 

[briannasaurdiff]

I've got sand blasting sand in mine Corries and khuli loaches to mess with it but when I do water changes I still mix it up a little to get rid of air pockets.