# white sand for betta aquarium?



## sayurasem (Nov 20, 2010)

can i use white sand for my substrate on my 10gal tank??
will the bettas choke?

i just saw videos by BettaMaster in youtube.... his tank is so nice with a crawfish.


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## Oldfishlady (Mar 1, 2010)

I use sand to cap my soil based tanks and have never had any problems with a betta choking or anything else and I also use the natural method to spawn and have never had issues with sand in regard to eggs, fry, male...etc.....

Cleaning and keeping the sand looking nice can be a challenge however, it tend to change color as the tank matures if you don't keep it stirred up enough and if you use filtration- that needs to be turned off before cleaning so the sand doesn't get into the impeller and cause problems

If you use sand and do not plan to use live plants I would not go over half-to-one inch at most so you don't end up with anaerobic areas, however, adding trumpet snail can help to a degree or weekly poking if you use a deeper sand bed without live plants

Sand can be beautiful.......just takes a bit more work to keep it that way....


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## aKu3 (Nov 18, 2010)

I have sandbased tanks and I hate it....lots of work!!! Don't recommend it!!!


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## atteb (Nov 12, 2010)

I use a very thin layer of sand for my bettas. I don't like deep sand beds even in my discus tank.

I would not recommend white sand as it will be very hard to keep clean, I use a natural colored sand and its perfect, make sure you stir up the sand from time to time so no dead pocket form.


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## anglnarnld (Aug 27, 2010)

Do not get sand, I have white sand right now and it is *hard* to get the poop out of it, Im actually looking in to changing back to regular gravel . It looks nice but super hard to matian ;/


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## JKfish (Apr 8, 2010)

I've got white sand I got from destin, and it's easy to keep. The poop falls on to the top, and if you have a turkey baster, you just suck it up daily. Once a week during water changes, turn off your filter and run your hands through it to move it around, and stirr up the mulm before sucking out the water. It looks nice, though I'm switching to Fluorite for a planted tank (I'm going to keep the sand to use to cap a NPT I might do one day with a darker colored betta)

Bettas are really precise in getting food from the ground, he won't choke on the sand, I promise. If he ever does eat sand, he'll spit it out.


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## sayurasem (Nov 20, 2010)

whats a turkey baster?
-btw i have some cleaning minions ... 7 ghost shrimps lol.


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## JKfish (Apr 8, 2010)

It's a large cooking pippet typically used when cooking to suck marinade or juice or something up and then squeezed to pour over something like turkey ... You can buy them cheaply almost anywhere in any store like walmart, target, etc. 

Ghosties are good cleaners, but you can't trust them to always eat poop, they typically ignore it if the other pickings are good.


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