linda
New Member
Hello! 
My 20 gallon "inherited" tank has now been set up at my house since December. The water test levels are good, the worst I've had is slightly low ph and a little bit of cloudiness from time to time (which is much improved since following everyones recommendations on my previous post). I have a question about substrate. My tank came with black live sand. I've been looking at photos of saltwater aquariums online, and I've discovered that I prefer the look of white sand. I would love to change it to white but I'm not sure if that is a wise choice for the health of my tank and it's inhabitants, since the black has been in there and it has finished cycling.
If I changed the sand, would I have to let my tank cycle from scratch again?
In my tank I have:
25 lbs of live rock
1 oscellaris clown
1 red firefish
1 green chromis
1 turbo snail
2 margarita snails
6 red-legged hermit crabs
1 zoa frag
I also dumped a bottle of tigger pods in there hoping to get ready to have a mandarin dragonet, but after researching further I decided against having a mandarin because it seems that even some experienced reef keepers have trouble keeping them alive even with supplementing pods. My little tank will surely be a death trap for the poor thing. Slowly starving to death over the course of a couple of months is torture. It's one thing if I make a mistake and my fish die... I'd feel really bad but hopefully learn something from it. But allowing a poor creature to slowly and painful starve to death in my tank just because I think it's pretty to look at is an awful thing to do. Coral is beautiful too, so I'm just going to focus on learning about coral for now.
But I think coral looks better on white sand than on black (I know it's just a matter of personal preference). I could live with the black sand, but would like to change it to white. I would love to hear other's thoughts on it.
Have a great day!
Linda
My 20 gallon "inherited" tank has now been set up at my house since December. The water test levels are good, the worst I've had is slightly low ph and a little bit of cloudiness from time to time (which is much improved since following everyones recommendations on my previous post). I have a question about substrate. My tank came with black live sand. I've been looking at photos of saltwater aquariums online, and I've discovered that I prefer the look of white sand. I would love to change it to white but I'm not sure if that is a wise choice for the health of my tank and it's inhabitants, since the black has been in there and it has finished cycling.
If I changed the sand, would I have to let my tank cycle from scratch again?
In my tank I have:
25 lbs of live rock
1 oscellaris clown
1 red firefish
1 green chromis
1 turbo snail
2 margarita snails
6 red-legged hermit crabs
1 zoa frag
I also dumped a bottle of tigger pods in there hoping to get ready to have a mandarin dragonet, but after researching further I decided against having a mandarin because it seems that even some experienced reef keepers have trouble keeping them alive even with supplementing pods. My little tank will surely be a death trap for the poor thing. Slowly starving to death over the course of a couple of months is torture. It's one thing if I make a mistake and my fish die... I'd feel really bad but hopefully learn something from it. But allowing a poor creature to slowly and painful starve to death in my tank just because I think it's pretty to look at is an awful thing to do. Coral is beautiful too, so I'm just going to focus on learning about coral for now.
But I think coral looks better on white sand than on black (I know it's just a matter of personal preference). I could live with the black sand, but would like to change it to white. I would love to hear other's thoughts on it.
Have a great day!
Linda
