Hi all, I currently have gravel in my ACF tank and I know that is bad. I want to switch to either nothing or sand. I am reading about sand and it looks like a huge PITA to get it in there and no matter how much I clean it it will cloud the water for a period of time. I want to leave the frogs in there when I change it over. Is that an option? Or would this clouding be unhealthy for them? The whole switching over sounds like a huge pain in general but I dont want the frogs ingesting the gravel (atm I think the frogs are too small to ingest it but not sure).
Any tips on getting the sand in there?
Thanks,
Carole
PD have heard that the frogs can kick up the sand and it can get in the filter, thus ruining it? True?
I have gravel in my ACF's tank. I think it would be a pain to change it as well so Im just gonna leave it in there. The gravel in my tank is really small grain so hopefully if they eat any they can pass it.
It really depends on the size of your tank. The bigger the tank, the more annoying. In any case, it's not has hard as it seems, just requires a little more work.
1) Clouding Issue:
Yes you will get clouding the first time you leave it in, what I did was I kept the sand in a bucket and washed the sand a couple of times to get those little particles (the cloud) out as much as I can. Of course you won't get ALL of it out because they are tiny. There is a method to prevent clouding when you put in water after the washing process. Take a plate that you won't use again, preferably flat, and you want to put it in an angle, around 45 degrees and make sure it's facing the glass. This is the annoying part because of the size of your tank. You need a slow stream water running into this plate, that way nothing splashes over. The way you do this? Be creative! Since my tank is small, I'm stuck with using a cup and slowly pouring it.
Why does the cloud happen?
If you've ever been to the beach, you'll notice sand gets carried away with the ocean water. Same concept here, if you pour the water vigorously as you would in gravel, your result would be sand going everywhere. Slow stream water and the angle of the plate is important!
2) As for the filter, I can't really say much because my filter has a setting to lower the speed making it sand friendly. And yes, they do kick the sand, mostly when they're startled, but with my filter it hasn't caused any problems at all!
I used to have river pebbles and then I switched to sand, back when I housed them in a 20 gallon.. here's how I did it.
I rinsed the sand in a bucket, I removed the frogs and put them in a temporary tank. I emptied the tank and added the sand then filled it back up again but the water was still very cloudy, I let the filters run over night and added back my driftwood, plants ect and then added back in the frogs the next day and they back to their froggy business.
ACF are rather hardy animals and tolerate human use pretty well, swapping out substrate shouldn't be a huge issue. I just moved to a new town with my frogs and while they certainly didn't go willingly into the critter keeper they were troopers and are doing well in their new home.
If you are going to feed them sinking pellets then I would highly recommend sand or a bare bottom tank though I am the paranoid type myself..
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