Hey, everybody Joey here again and welcome back
Today, I'm going to be showing you [how] to add sand to your aquarium
Some important things to know [when] you're adding sandal
To your [aquarium] is first you need to clean it and how to add it into the tank properly
So that's what I'm going to show you supplies. You need are simple. You need a water source
You should be outside when you're doing this need a couple of buckets
I'm using three based on the quantity of the sand I'm using you'll see why in a moment and my sand of course
I'm using pool filtration, sand
Why I use. This is for [a] number of reasons
It's cheap
commonly available
The grain signs the Grain size [is] perfect. It's also not too dirty
what I mean by grain size is
It's a medium size
Sand we're going to take a closer. Look at it here in a moment the importance to sand and the size of it is
pretty important in your aquarium number one pool filtration sand is doesn't have [a] tendency to clump up or
compact and your aquarium
Still is still a good size sand to allow water flow through it as well
Not to mention its price. It's only about ten bucks eight eight to ten dollars for about forty pounds
So a lot of good features to it it also has a nice natural look to it. It's inert meaning
it doesn't have an impact on your water quality or
parameters
And it's safe for almost any fish that I've tried it with including stingrays and bottom dwellers like that
It doesn't have sharp edges. It's not made of stop anything that's going to hurt your fish
so let's get started by taking [a] closer look at the actual sand and how to clean
Okay, so here's the sand you can see it. Just simply says swimming pool filtration, sand
[says] that it's for commercial and residential swimming pools the sand filters that sort of thing
Anyways, the look of it is
No an off-white color more of a beige
And a nice grain size let's have a close look here. You can see that
Okay, so as you can see it's a great grain size for your tank nice [natural] look to it
One downside to using sand in your tank is that it is
Filthy usually, it's pretty dusty
So we're going to clean it first before we add it show you how to do that
Okay, one [of] the reasons. We have several buckets is simple we rinse and wash a little bit of the sand at the time
We're not looking to get it all done at once [I]
Like to pour about you know ten pounds into the bucket at a time. Which is the buddha quarter in the bag
See the dust coming off it already. That's what we don't want in the tank
We want to rinse it off, so we start our water up
Just [so] cold water doesn't matter the temperature all we're doing is filling the bucket
As you can see it's pretty dirty not compared to most [sans] the pool filtration sand in general is quite clean
but nonetheless
The water is cloudy
That some particles floating in it. That's what we want to get rid of
as it's filling up the reason why we
Are only doing a little bit at a time is [we] want to be able to stir it up
Okay, just continue to fill can be done filling in few moments
And there's a great shot [of] the particles floating in it obviously the water still brown and cloudy [just] fine
Better to do this now than to have it happen in your tank my tank water if we didn't rinse
It first will look just like that
Okay, so the waters at the top all we're doing now is letting it overflow
Okay, we keep running the water in it until the water runs off clear
Which can take a few minutes [depending] on how [dirty] the sand was to begin with?
but we [cure] it every once in a while here and
[eventually] the water will run
You're never going to get a crystal clear at first, but the longer you spend rinsing it the better
Okay, now let's say for example. This is already running off clear obviously, it's Gonna take a little bit longer
Okay
All we're going to do is pour the water out
But not the same
The sand is pretty heavy, so it stays in place when you're dumping water out
That's basically it now. This is why we have the other buckets with the rents
And we now dump this into one of the other empty buckets [you]
[get] a closer. Look okay?
Okay, I'm not done renting this but again. We just wanna make sure all the water is out
And not having all the water out is fine from there. We simply dump it in
it's pretty much it [so]
[we] know now that this sand is rinsed and ready to go it's ready [to] be added into the tank
So I'm going to go ahead and continue to rinse all the sand until I have it all done
And then I'll show you how to properly add it to your tank
[so] you don't create any more issues?
So I'll do that now
Okay guys, so we're now ready to add the sand to the aquarium as you can see my tank is up and running
There's fish in it of course. They're hiding they're a little pissed off of me right [now]
reason being is I just took out all the plants and wood and
Wipe down [the] tank what I mean by [wiping] [Devon]
Tank is I took a cloth on the inside and wiped off all the algae that was growing
And it clouded the tank up a bit, so they're a little [upset] with me right [now]
Obviously if you're starting with a new aquarium, and there is no fish in it, you'll have a bear tank
You can just dump your sand right in fill your tank up a lot of us already have
Aquariums running we have gravel you know different types of substrates in it and we want to switch to sand
So this is an option [for] you
What you want to do is?
Take out enough water out
[of] your aquarium so that when you add the sand in the water that the
Sand is going to displace is already taken out
Sorry the water that the sand is going to displace
She has already taken out
Obviously when you have a tank here you had sand it's going to rise with a sump
That's going to rise in the city in the sub area I've already taken enough water out of there to accommodate
The extra sand I want to add
so
We just dump it in not really [we] take a simple tupperware container [just] [a] small one. You know nothing nothing too big and
What we're simply going to do
scoop out [some] of our pre wash sand like so okay and
Lower it into [the] top of the tank let it fill up with water
like so
Okay, and we're not pouring it in yet. Not dumping it in yet
Not doing anything until we get to the bottom
Okay
porto
Hey, this is simply [just] a lot less stress less stress on your fish
Obviously, they didn't cloud the tank or anything like that
So what I'm going to do is go ahead and finish
Getting all the sand in the tank, and then we'll come back
We'll take a look at it, and I'll tell you what to do next
Okay guys, so [now] I have all of my sand in the tank as you can see I'm not really adding a whole lot
I'm just looking to get [maybe] quarter into [half-inch] [of] sand on the bottom. This is namely
Mainly for you know aesthetic reasons. I'm not looking for functionality [of] the sand in terms of growing
Plants, and that sort of thing I will be doing plants. I'm going to be doing low-light plants
And plants that don't need a substrate. You know like a newbie asst Java fern jeb moss. That sort of deal
anyways
Next up is smoothing it out
I'm just going to be using a piece of scrap acrylic. You can use anything really
anything with a flat edge all we're going to do is take the flat edge of the acrylic to push it out like so
like spread throughout the tank
[I'm] not looking for perfection at this point. I'm just looking for distribution of the stands the sand throw of the tank
Flicks up it gives me a nice
Spread of the sand right up right off the bat so I can now I can distribute the rest of the sand by hand
[so] I'm going to do that now. We'll come back, and we'll take us to the next step
Okay, so the sand has been evenly distributed amongst the tank. [I] never like flattened it out or anything like that
just gave it a more natural look the
Background you probably can't tell in the video, but the background looks far better like this
I'm still having some a bit of cloudy water here
So your next step even [though] we rinse the tank you're still going to get some cloudiness
Or so even though you wish rinse the sand you're still going to get some cloudiness
So my next step is to
Do a big water change, so I'm going to change about 50% of the water
Fill it back up, and then [we'll] have a look and see with the tank look like that
Okay, everybody
Tank is now [two-headed] 50% water change obviously the water still a tad bit cloudy you know that's to be expected
Don't panic professing the case with you as well
The water will clear within you know a day or two probably by [this] evening for me
So yeah, let's start to finish adding stain sand to your aquarium obviously I went with pool filtration sand it's highly
It's actually becoming more and more popular [in] the hobby
with time
Due [to] its you know its appearance and the benefits of it including the price only being
You know eight to ten dollars [per] 40 pounds. It's an amazing price. It's inert. No. No effect on the water chemistry or perimeters
You know nice round
Grains to it a nice size as well allowing water to circulate through it
On top of that it looks great. It looks pretty good. You know it's not bright white sand but it's definitely
It's definitely close to it. It's an off-white with the sprinkle of pepper of different types of different colored
Pieces of sand through it giving it a nice natural look obviously my fish are still hiding over the corner there
They're still a bit upset at me. You know I'll apologize to them with the treat later part perhaps
It's now all I got left to do is add in my decorations
You know which was just some some Jennifer attached to some wood
I'm still not sure what I'm doing with this tank, but this is basically the latest update
I figured I'd show you how I'm doing it
anyways
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