Sand Questions

[mpmistr]

I had my ACFs on black volcanic sand with no problems at all. It's just it doesn't seem to hold plant life very well as my amazon swords keeps on having rotten roots lol

Not sure why your amazon swords are rotting, really the sand itself would be inert so if you are using root feeding plants like swords or crypts you'll want to use root tabs (or dirt capped with sand) to keep these plants.

As far as black volcanic sand, I am not sure what brand you are using. In the US the main choices for black sand are Tahitian Moon (Caribsea), Black Diamond (coal slag), and I believe PetCo carries a black sand as well but I found it very similar to Tahition Moon, very jagged/sharp sand.

Your sand may be different, I know there is black sand in Hawaii and I've never really tested it to see how well it works in an aquarium (also it is illegal to take off the beach!).

[Tongue Flicker]

Not sure why your amazon swords are rotting, really the sand itself would be inert so if you are using root feeding plants like swords or crypts you'll want to use root tabs (or dirt capped with sand) to keep these plants.

As far as black volcanic sand, I am not sure what brand you are using. In the US the main choices for black sand are Tahitian Moon (Caribsea), Black Diamond (coal slag), and I believe PetCo carries a black sand as well but I found it very similar to Tahition Moon, very jagged/sharp sand.

Your sand may be different, I know there is black sand in Hawaii and I've never really tested it to see how well it works in an aquarium (also it is illegal to take off the beach!).

Well they're kinda naturally harvested around the smallest volcano in the world, Mt.Taal lol.. i took like one sack of sand and washed it with heavily chlorinated running tap for 2 days then started conditioning it haha