substrate

[shannon]

I was wondering if anyone in the USA knows a good sorce for small rounded gravel.

[MatsP]

Sandblasting sand and pool filter sand would be a couple of inexpensive choices. These are, as far as I understand, not as fine as the "playsand" that are also used in Cory tanks quite frequently.

For even coarser variants, you probably have to use an LFS supplied product. I don't know what products are available in the US...

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Mats

[apistomaster]

CaribSea used market a pure quartz sand they called "Torpedo Beach Sand".
It was the ideal particle size for aquarium use. Rather than being sugar fine or nearly so like pool filter, sand blasting and play sands, it had a particle size of about 2 mm. Large enough for oxygenated water to perfuse through several inches deep substrate.
The particles were rounded enough to be Corydoras nose safe and small enough for most sand sifting fish except possibly Apistogramma but the Apistogramma stilll could easily dig it out to for caves under wood or rocks if that's what they wanted to do.
I haven't seen it being shown in any of the big on line fish supply houses in their catalogs for about the last 2 years but some may still be out there somewhere. I used it in one of my wild Discus tanks and they can easily sift through it.

My only objection to it was that I felt it was extremely overpriced. 50 lbs bags cost about $22.00 FOB and the freight charge made it actually cost even more. I broke down the one time and bought some for that Discus tank. It starts out pure white but over time it tones down as algae begins to establish itself in tiny cracks. It's slightly larger size made it much easier to hydrovac it to remove accumulated dirt than the fine sands that are now the easiest types to find.

I used to get the same material in 100 lb bags when I had a fish shop and the 100 weight bags only cost me about $7.00.
I did a lot of searching and found that the quarry had closed down over 10 years ago due to EPA regulations/lack of profitability.
There was nothing special about it so I don't know why it hasn't been replaced by equally good suppliers. It was sold as #8 quartz sand,#8 being equal to 1/8 inch maximum particle size. Below is the tank I used the Torpedo beach sand. You may see the live black worms on the surface in the lower right.

[shannon]

Thank you for the info. Your discus are amazing! I should have been more specific I still want to use an undergravel filter in my tank that will include cory cats among other fish. I know sand is the favorite substrate, but I love the gravel and have had cories on it before without nose trouble. I think that was because it was pretty small and smooth edged gravel. The pet store I got it at is long gone now and I don't remember the brand name of gravel. Any ideas out there?

[apistomaster]

I would reconsider using an under gravel filter. It can be done but you should vacuum all the substrate to the depth of the filter every week which is difficult to do if your tank is planted.
I won't go into all the reasons but I just say that no one who is a very experience fish keeper no longer uses them for good reasons. I will let other explain the details or you may Google the subject for more information.

[shannon]

Thank you. I must admit it took up my weekends with cleaning tanks. So what would you recomend to a person on a budget. I remember one of the guys at my fish store (now out of bussiness) recomending a biowheel. I will use the net to find out more about them. Still not sold on sand. I would get a wet dry filter if I could afford one but they are out of my range.

[MatsP]

So, under-gravel filtration is indeed inexpensive. Sponge filters that are air-driven is the next option for low-cost biological and mechanical filtration.

It is not very expensive to do a DIY sump (wet'n'dry) filter if you have a little bit of DIY capability and some spare time. All you need is a large-ish container, a pump, filter media and some pipes/hoses. You get the best results if you can drill the tank - this is not very difficult or expensive, the diamond drill bit is about $20 and can be used for a lot of holes. The most expensive parts in this is either the pump or the filter media - somewhat dependent on whether you go for an expensive or less expensive choice on either of those. Hoses and/or pipes are about $10-20 for one tank. A suitable tub is $5-20 depending on size. A pump can be had for as little as $20-30, but can also cost $150, depending on how many tanks you need to use the same pump for. Filter media... Sponge mats and "wool" is the cheapest, again $10 or so.

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Mats

[apistomaster]

I use DIY wet/dry filters but I am not willing to bore any holes in my aquarium glass so I use commercial over flow siphons always with a $10 AquaLifter suction pump connected to the siphon. Te suction pump constantly removes any bubbles that may accumulate and cause the siphoning action to break which will lead to flood disaster. These after market over flow siphons are not cheap but neither is a 75 gal or 125 gal tank that cracks during boring the holes through the glass. It is safer to buy a pre-drilled tank than having one break as part of a DIY project. Boring holes through glass requires buying the bit and/or grinding compound and it takes practice to perfect your boring techniques. This is fine if you are planning on doing multiple tanks where the equipment costs can be averaged out over many tanks.
I recommend the Marineland Tide Pool or CPR over flow siphons over any of the others. The Tide Pool doesn't have a connection for the 3/16" tubing for the Aqualifter pumps in its "C" siphon but one may be easily added by drilling a hole then using airplane model glue to add a short section of 3/16" rigid tubing. This works better than snaking a length of air line tubing to the top section of the "C" siphon. These models are available for flows of 300 to 1600 gph.
I do not trust the cheaper over flow siphons which use inverted "U" shaped tube siphons.