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Hello Pseudas owners!

I am running bare bottom right now and I am thinking of putting a substrate... I bought few bags of pea gravel from homedepot I was thinking of returning them and getting the natural play sand. I have read that sand can ruin filters/impellers. I have L600's, L114's, L273, small adonis. Im running two AC110's and thinking of putting a Eheim pro 2074.
Should I do pea gravel or play sand or stay bare? If none of those, what would you suggest?
I would appreciate if guys can post pictures of your gravel.
Any suggestion or input would be appreciated.
Thanks.

I think there is sand in the nature where they live, but fine gravel works fine by me! It depends a bit on the cirkulationssystem in the aquarium!

Have sand in my tanks. You can put a sponge I've the intake of your filters if you're worried about sand getting in there. I have a modified intake on one of my HOBs and the other has a short lift tube, about 2/3 up the tank; both run smoothly.

I'm firmly holding onto the wood of my table as I'm writing this, but I have sand of various types in all of my tanks, and have had for the past three-four years. Not had any problems with impellers. There's usually some sand in the bottom of the filter, but it's not causing a problem as far as I can tell. I'm sure someone will contradict this, as there is always someone who has had all manner of problems with sand. But my experience with 11 tanks, 10 of which have external filters, all with sand is that it's not a problem.

--
Mats

This is the Mod I was refering to, except I use 3/4" PVC on a AC500 or AC110, depending on the year it was made.

Sand look the best.
At first I didn't put a sponge on the canister filter intake (Rena XP4) and it got a little bit damaged, but still working fine.
I placed a sponge after and no more problem. It also depend on the size of the pleco, when they fight, sand move a lot !

Here is a picture of my 125g with sand :


Cheers, Chouin

Thanks for all of your comments, suggestions so far. So you guys think the play sand from homedepot are ok? I like the natural color and the price is just unbeatable. My L600's and L114's are all 8 inches and up. The intake on my AC110's are about 8 to 10 inches from the bottom of the tank, so if i put about 2inch or 3, that will still give me about 5 inches from the sand.

In my city, Home Depot used to carry Target brand playsand, and I could add it right to a full tank of water with very minimal clouding - it was AWESOME! Now they only carry Quickrete brand, and it's quite a bit more cloudy - it's best to add when the tank is empty, then add water slowly and you won't see any cloudiness. Other brands from other hardware stores around here are terrible for cloudiness; you can rinse and rinse, and you'll still have to wait a day before you can see the back of the tank!