Black Beauty Sand in a Cichlid Tank

[danielp]

Would like some experience feedback on this stuff.

Considering this or Caribe Sea Tahitian Moon for my frontosa project.

Which one?

My wife has done silica analysis work on this stuff and thinks it's ok for an aquarium.

[myjohnson]

Why black?

This is just a personally thing for me but I think black sand don't look natural.

[mark razmandi]

i love black sand, especially on a frontosa tank, rico had a 125 with black beauty sand and it looked great.

[Joe Reborn]

My Brother in-law has a 240gal SA tank and the Black Beauty is starting to rust in some spots. I have some Fronts and what i have come to love is Pool Filter Sand and Permacolor Quartz Granules. i have it on a 125gal PFS is $15 for 50lbs and Permacolor Quartz is $20 for 50lbs. Its almost identical to CS:TM. The fished project looks like Caribe Sea: Africa Cichlid Substright. I will add pictures tomorrow.

[Joe Reborn]

Here is a Picture of a 125gal that has PFS and Permacolor Quartz the mix ratio was 100lbs of PFS to 20 Permacolor.
DSC01612.jpgDSC01521.jpg

[danielp]

Why black?

This is just a personally thing for me but I think black sand don't look natural.

Have done a lot of looking on cyphos.com and such and the black sand for mobas seems to be popular choice.

I'll be done refinishing the stand next week. It's a dark stain and I think black sand/gravel with holey rock will look good. the background is going to be a light blue (carolina blue variant) shade.

[danielp]

Here is a Picture of a 125gal that has PFS and Permacolor Quartz the mix ratio was 100lbs of PFS to 20 Permacolor.
[ATTACH=CONFIG]3150[/ATTACH][ATTACH=CONFIG]3151[/ATTACH]

Interesting. I just redid my 28 gallon bio cube with a very similiar substrate.

[cichlid1409]

that looks good joe. it does look alot like the carib-sea but much cheaper.

[mark razmandi]

i like black, i like PFS...i think mixing of colors is the most unnatural look there is...not a fan of it at all but to each their own and i cant hate.

[FrontosaurusRex]

Here is a Picture of a 125gal that has PFS and Permacolor Quartz the mix ratio was 100lbs of PFS to 20 Permacolor.
[ATTACH=CONFIG]3150[/ATTACH][ATTACH=CONFIG]3151[/ATTACH]

Nice fish man. Are those Mpimbwe?

[FrontosaurusRex]

I think the color of the sand really depends on the color of the fish, the color of the background, the color of your rocks and what kind of light you plan on using. I personally love the black sand with my Fronts BUT its not "natural". I also used black sand in my Discus tank and they looked terrible with the dark substrate. I like PFS when its fresh...after about 6 months or so, it starts getting dirty and needs to be changed.

[mark razmandi]

my PFS looks the same as the day i bought it. If its dirty maybe it just needs to be vacuumed.

[FrontosaurusRex]

my PFS looks the same as the day i bought it. If its dirty maybe it just needs to be vacuumed.

I was told that if you fluff it once a month it'll stay fresh but with a tank thats over 100g its kind of hard to do that to all of the sand.

[mikeb144]

There are many opioions regaurding substrate. I have both swimming pool filter sand and Dolomite. Everyone agrees about the pricing of the sand. Some believe that if you don't stir the sand it will develop pockets of gases (ture or not I don't know, I clean and stir my sand). The dolomite helps me buffer my PH. If u have a large tank with sand just add a giraffe cat, they will takr care of moving the sand around!

[danielp]

I've mainly used the tan colored blasting grit in my tanks. It's worked really well.

I'm not interested in white or sand because of things mentioned in prior comments.

Hearing that the black beauty can show signs of washing out isn't very good either.

Sounds like my plan is going to be: Tahitian Moon sand (larger particle size) and liter of Florida crusher coral in my e-heims.

I may bury a few bags of crushed coral under the holey rock that will be going in the tank.

If Caribe Sea had an all black substrate in the african cichlid mix problem would be solved but aragonite and coral are not naturally ocurring in black.