Ditched gravel for paddletails, sand tips anyone?

[anothernewtfan]

Due to the info i´ve read on Caudata.org i have taken all the gravel out of my 55 gallon paddletail setup. Seems it was well worth the work, much cleaner. I´ve never used sand before but that is my plan.

 

[SludgeMunkey]

I use no substrate for my Pachytritons. This makes feeding and cleaning much easier. This is important as this species prefers cold, fast moving, very clean water. As long as numerous hides are available, your Pachies will be fine.

Have a look at the aquatic substrates article on Caudata Culture for to learn everything you never wanted to know about the subject.

 

[JWERNER]

Due to the info i´ve read on Caudata.org i have taken all the gravel out of my 55 gallon paddletail setup. Seems it was well worth the work, much cleaner. I´ve never used sand before but that is my plan.

Sand can be just as easy to clean as bare bottom tanks since with both the detritus sits on top. But, with sand the detritus has a substrate to degrade into and requires some churning once a week or so.

Make sure its not a calcium based sand and make sure you wash it pretty good or you'll get lots of dust in the tank causing all sorts of problems.

If you wanna do a bare bottom but like the look of sand you could take 100% silicone, smear it on the bottom of the tank, and press sand down into it. Dump out the excess and repeat a few times. Once you feel you got a good cover dump out any excess again so the silicone can cure properly.
The color silicone depends n the color sand. If you using regular yellowish sand use bronze silicone. If your using black sand, use black silicone and so forth.