questions about sand in aquariums.

[muuunkeeyy]

well. i have been wondering for a long time on how to take care of the sand in my tank. i heard you have to swish it around or something to release dangerous gases inside it and stuff. the sand is kind of covered with small boulders and i dont really like moving them around. is just syphoning certain parts of the tank ok or do i have to move the rocks around and syphon that area as well? where the rock sit is about 4" and the middle is 1" of sand. is doing waterchanges and basically keeping the water clean good enough or is there something else i have to do with the sand to keep the tank and fish healthy?

[newb]

good amount of water change should be fine...I would suggest getting under the rocks at least once every other month or so. what kind of fish are in the tank?

[muuunkeeyy]

brackish archer fish and mono. i have some ghost shrimps lurking around under the rocks, i dont think they would make a big mess but rather clean it up. i hope they are still there lol..ive only seen a few ever since i dumped $2 worth of them in there lol.

[muuunkeeyy]

i have a sponge filter and an aquaclear 20 in the 29 right now and when i find a good eheim canister, ill have 3 filters going at the same time lol. its never bad to overfilter!! lol. that should cut down my numbers of waterchange.

[newb]

I would still keep up with water change.

[muuunkeeyy]

yeah..ima do partial waterchanges like twice a month or so.

[newb]

...thats it?

[muuunkeeyy]

how much of a water change should i be doing then lol..archer fish and mono dont poop that much.

[newb]

I have never kept archer fish...nor do I know anything about them...but I would do at least 4 50% water changes a month. on that small of a tank that couldnt take more than about 20minutes tops.

[muuunkeeyy]

adding salt to the tank gets pricy! i dont think ill have enough money for 4 50% water changes after adding a bunch of salt into the tank.

[newb]

ahh...I see. Actually not sure if your supposed to do that many WC's with a brackish tank? maybe someone who keeps brackish(Nick) will step in later.

[Zulaab]

Muunkey-- you are doing well with every other week doing a 30% water change. With only a few fish in the tank they are not going to mess up the tank like a colony of fish that eat a lot of food.

[muuunkeeyy]

thanks for input! nice tanks again. i really like your 200g troph tank lol. and thanks for the rocks again!