Sand Substrates (was Undergravel filters)

[Erik Olson <eriko@wrq.com>]

On Sat, 1 Nov 1997 IDMiamiBob@aol.com wrote:

[Light sand freaks fish out.  Darker gravel is better]
...
> the texture of the two substrates.  In my experience, I have yet to see
> gravel dark enough in color to approximate the dark bottoms of their native
> waters.

Hey, that reminds me; a couple weeks back Dave Soares told us he found a
very dark, almost black, play sand at plain-old home centers that worked
great for his fish.  We've been casually checking to see if we can find
such a thing at "our" home centers here... but sounds like such a thing
might give you the best of both worlds: sand for the fish to sift through
and that won't let eggs get stuck in the cracks, and dark colored so they
won't be skittish. 

It is definitely working in our Tanganyikan tanks, which have been set up
with locally-gathered dark beach sand for about 2 months now... so I can't
wait to try it with a non-calcerous sand for the Apistos.

  - Erik

- ---
Erik D. Olson					         amazingly, at home
eriko@wrq.com