I have always had fish tanks for sometime now, and i've always used about two inches of sand for every tank. I have never really had any problems with this. But now, the more i've been reading up on this, people are recommending up to four inches of sand. I was under the impression that sand holds lots of nitrates, but as well beneficial bacteria. I went to a usually knowledgeable LFS the other day, and purchased a 24g nano tank. They were recommending only 10 lbs of sand. Now im in a dilema of how much to use. Any opinions would be helpful.
~Thanks

Introduction

This is a copy of an Article by Super Moderator Ahill on the topic of getting help in the forums. I think it is worth posting in the forums for a while.

Regards,
Jay

If you have a question about your tank then someone here probably has an answer for you. But there are a few things you can do to help eliminate the guesswork involved and get down to the real problem in order to find a resolution fast.

First off, much of the ailements that plague aquaria are due to poor water quality. For this reason, this is generally the first thing that you will be asked about.

Getting Results

Since we cannot always see your tank and the conditions you describe we must rely on information to help us determine what the underlying issue is. Testing your tanks parameters and knowing what the current levels are is a crucial part to accurately diagnosing and treating your tank.

Statements such as "I have algae in my tank" and "My water is cloudy" are not really enough to go on.

Here are a few of the questions you will likely encounter first whenever asking for help with your tank.

Freshwater

What size is the tank?
How long has the tank been set up and running for?
How many fish do you have, and what are they?
What is your Ammonia level?
What is your Nitrite level?
What is your Nitrate level?
What is your pH?
What is your KH?
What is your GH?
What is the temperature?
What type of filtration do you use?
How often do you change the filtration media?
How often do you perform water changes?
How often and how much do you feed your tank?
What chemicals do you dose in your tank?
Where do you gather your water from, and what conditioners do you use on it?

If the tank is Planted then add the following:

What is your Phosphate level?
What is your Iron level?
What is your CO2 level?
What Type of lighting do you use?
How long are the lights on each day?

Saltwater

What size is the tank?
How long has the tank been set up and running for?
How many fish do you have, and what are they?
Do you house Corals or sensitive invertebrates in the tank?
What Salt mix do you use?
Where do you mix your saltwater at and how long before you use it?
What is your Ammonia level?
What is your Nitrite level?
What is your Nitrate level?
What is your pH?
What is your KH?
What is your salinity (ppt) or specific gravity (ppm)?
What is the temperature?
What type or combination of filtration do you use?
How often do you change the filtration media?
What type of lighting do you have?
How often do you perform water changes?
How often and how much do you feed your tank?
What chemicals do you dose in your tank?
Where do you gather your water from, and what conditioners do you use on it?
If you keep carnivorous fish do you feed them live foods?

If you have a Reef tank then add the following:

What is your Phosphate level at?
What is your Calcium level at?
What is your Strontium level?
What is your Magnesium level?
How much current do you have in the tank?
How much live rock is present?
How many total watts of lighting are you providing the tank with?

In Closing

Answer as many of these questions as you possibly can in your first post. The answers to these questions can tell whether your tank is cycled, biologically stable, overburdened, properly configured for the species you house, has compatibility issues that need to be addressed, and will give clues as to what is causing your problems, how to deal with them, and how best you can go about resolving the issue so that it does not return.

Help others help you by coming prepared with some base statistics. Otherwise there will be a lot of back and forth, what is this, how about that, check this and report back...

HTH,
Aaron

I have been fighting ich on my 2 clown loaches and catfish for a week now. Back and forth with water changes, gravel vacuming, medicating, Adding salt ,temp up to 84. They still look like hell! Im wondering if i Remove the gravel and try sand if that will give the little spots less of a place to hide, when they fall off the fish to reproduce. Should it at the least help keep the tank cleaner? (with regular vaccuming and water changes) I was going to try the Black Tahitian Moon Sand For my digging loaches. Ive tried most recommended treatments so far with to no avail, With the exception of Blacking out my tank for a week. Any Help Will Be Greatly Appreciated Im Starting to get more stressed than my fish! I really dont want to loose my loaches or catfish. Please Help!

Also on a side note: I have purchased a hydrometer The Glass Float type with built in therm. After having added Aquarium salt At the suggested amount of 1 Tbls per 5 gal of water the hydrometer reading is that of distilled water 1.000. How is This? What reading Should i Be Trying to Obtain? (1.010-1.015)

hey guys. my tank was doing alright except for some algae that started growing on the glass. it was white/see-through and about 1.5mm in length. it would sway back and forth with the water flow.
i got a magna-float magnet and scraped all the algae so the glass looks perfect now. that same day i added a small bottle ful of Cycle because i thought i had high ammonia levels (turns out it was a false reading due to using ammo lock). also added 10 lbs of Estes black gravel (after rising/cleaning).
next day the water started looking hazy. since then i've put twice the water clarifier, which makes it much cloudier and then when its "done" goes back to being the same hazy way it's been since i scraped the algae/added the cycle. i have no idea what it could be that's doing this. i changed the water already and nothing. i stopped my air pump and shut off the oxygen intake on my filter so there's virtually no bubbles in the water, only surface movement. i still see a great amount of very small particles in the water that the clarifier nor the filters are taking care of...
could it be that having scraped the algae led to this? what else could it be and what can i do about it?
thanks!

btw, i have a 50G marineland bio-wheel filter and a 40G marineland wet/dry filter. both with double filter pads and some aquarium gravel in them for the bacteria...

help/suggestions please. i want my water back to clean!

Does anyone know about the LEDs they use in the professionally built moonlights? I'm thinking about putting something simple together myself.

I was thinking about using these LEDs for the blue color:
http://www.besthongkong.com/product_...722311b79fe9c1

I would probably put 3 or 4 of these inside of my fluorescent hood, so that it the light would be a little more diffuse.

I've also considered adding some ultraviolet LEDs too. I have some glofish, and I think it would be cool to see them flouresce at night under the softer moonlight. Does anyone know if there are any health issues that would arise for my fish or plants by using UV lights? Just for a reference, the UV LEDs I would probably use are these:
http://www.besthongkong.com/product_...722311b79fe9c1

I would appreciate any comments or suggestions, especially if you have component/mounting ideas that might make the project better.

Thanks.

Hello all,
I have kept salt water tanks for over 15 years and now I am going to set up my first Chiclid tank. It is going to be in a 125 gallon, so far I have the tank, std. flour. lights and heaters. I would like to get some input on how to proceed from all you fresh water guru's. I want to know the best types of filtration, substrate, plants, lighting, all of it. I am not worried about going cheap on this, I want the best equip. avail so do not pull punches. I also need to know if I should be using the same RO/DI water I use for my salt tanks or if there is something better. Basically if you could set up you dream tank, what would it have?

So my new skimmer just arrived today. Perfect timing since I moved my tank yesterday (120 gallon tank 50 gallon sump all day job, never doing that again) to a better location for the fish, not so much traffic. I choose not to put on my other crappy skimmer, since I knew this one was supposed to arrived today.
So the me vs skimmer battle has begun. Excited as all hell, I read the instructions, and put that sucker together. All is good, fits great, looks like it is going to do a great job. Ready to see some good skimming in action, I plug it in, and damn, thing goes crazy foamy water everywhere, so much force knocks the lid clear off. So I scrammbled to get it unpluged, and re-read the book. So now I attemped it with the air control valve on it (which by the way they recommened to use it off first). Close it up and going to slowly uncrew as I go to get it right. Plug it in, ready to see some skimming action again....Now I have a water fountain, with zero foam, can't crank the valve fast enough to see if it changes anything. I'm uncrewing the valve, water everywhere, my dog ended up with a bath, I'm wet, the inside of my cabinet is 1in deep with water, till I finally figure out this is not going to work, and I uplug it again.

I'm going back in for round 2 tomorrow when I have more light to see what I have going on. I was so angry, but now its actually kinda funny....Like the excitment on x-mas when you where a kid, rip the present open to discover you got clothes.

Anyone have any suggestions before I attempt round 2 in the AM?

Hello fellow fish-addicts!

I have noticed that over the past couple of weeks, a few members here have posted some questions and concerns over finding a better way to manage applying backgrounds to our tanks since the good old 'scotch tape' method leaves a lot to desire as far as clarity and getting one to stick evenly. Like a lot of us, I had this same issue when I first started out because I really enjoyed the backgrounds which depict a picture or scenery. The problem was always that simply taping the background to the tank did not keep the background pressed tightly against the glass, which is needed for clarity, and if it did, it didn't do so evenly. I finally became frustrated and found the answer to this problem, which was as simple as looking to my medicine cabinet rather than hunting down some fancy product and I have stuck to this method (no pun intended) ever since:

Background Application 101

The simple answer to applying a background in a very clear, very even, and very reliable method is to throw out the tape and pick up a small....or in my recent case, large....jar of petroleum jelly! On my new 125 gallon reef tank, I set up my tank in an area where I could easily reach and deal with the backside glass, which for me was my kitchen table....although let me warn you all now, if you have a spouse like my wonderful wife, you may have to be ready to run if she catches you doing this:


Luckily, I was able to talk my wife into helping me so things went faster with only having to suffer one large, and one medium bruise. The equipment you will need are easy to find and many of us might have them laying around the house on any given day:

First, you will need an applicator of some sort. In this case, I was using a sponge brush usually used for staining but in reality, I have found that keeping a bottle of soap handy and using my hands works the fastest. You will also need a razor blade for trimming off the excess background which is very important to this method...but more on that later. You will need something to smooth out the background as well. In the past, I have relied on an old credit card or driver's license, but with a larger tank, you may want to pick up something like the large putty knife I used here to save time. You will need a towel....and I have found that using an aquaria-themed towel such as mine with a reef depicted on it significantly increases the chances of success! Lastly, you will need the petroleum jelly such as the generic brand I used here.


The rest is pretty easy and I am sure that you can already predict what needs to happen here. First, apply the petroleum jelly using whatever devise you feel will work best. Here I used my hand and my wonderful wife spread it more evenly by using the sponge brush. In reality, you will not need to worry all that much about getting a perfectly even coat on, but the better you can get it applied now, the more time and effort you can save later. Obviously this is not the intended purpose of petroleum jelly so it is not easy to get a perfect layer applied to glass....IMHO, you can do your best but don't dwell on it for too long since, like I said, you will be fixing it later.



The next step is to trim the excess background off so that it can be pressed entirely to the glass without any descrepancies. Trim the top and bottom fo the background first, and then trim the sides just like....