Habitat - Indoor :: Sand FAQ

[MoreBloodWine]

Hmm, I suppose after I get all my stuff bought and setup I'll have to see wether or not I'd need to do something similer. Bit off topic but whats the ideal height from the subrtate for the output so it doesnt blow things around.

[Chrisbarnett]

Doesn't really matter, it all depends on the angle. I have my outflow 2.5" from the top of the sand, but you could move it closer if you could angle the outflow upwards a little bit.

[untsmurf]

I didn't realize that your hose was so long. My hoses end right outside the rim of the tank. I wish I had seen yours before setting mine up. I never realized that you could deviate from the instructions that much.

[Chrisbarnett]

Oh so your outflow is basically stirring up the top of the water column? I just inserted 5/8" ID tubing into the piece that hooks over the tank and then chose what depth I wanted.

[Listen97]

sorry to continue the off-topic post, but does it help to have the outflow under the water instead. my current filter of course said to use the spray bar or directional spout. i decided to use the spray bar because it gives the most area coverage to cycle the water around. what works better.

[untsmurf]

Oh so your outflow is basically stirring up the top of the water column? I just inserted 5/8" ID tubing into the piece that hooks over the tank and then chose what depth I wanted.

well not really, the end of the outtake went about halfway down the tank, but we had to use all the little L shaped pieces to get it to do that. Now it's a lot closer to the bottom of the tank, but not as close as I'd like. I just never stopped to think that I could set it up like yours. The directions say to run the tube from the canister up to the outside edge of the tank and that's what we did. stupid directions.

[Chrisbarnett]

Oh I see now. Yeah I didn't even listen to the directions, I just set it up how I wanted.

My intake is extended with tubing as well, to make it as deep as possible without sucking up sand. If you want I can get a picture of that too.

[untsmurf]

Cool, thanks!

[Chrisbarnett]

Heres some pictures of my intake. sorry it took so long to get them, I forgot. and ignore the algae, I haven't wiped the corners in a while.

[JimmyJam]

I wish I would have seen these pics before siliconing my inlet and outlet tubes lol. I hate boxed directions.

Does the position of the filter inlet and outlets really matter? I'm sitting here surfing the net for some sand, but forgot that even with the smaller gravel I got in Mary Jane's tank she kicks it up too easy and it gets kicked up pretty high. So now I'm kinda weary on buying sand if it will get kicked up even higher.

I have an idea of doing like a sand on the whole bottom and probably river rocks near the inlet so she's be too far to kick up the sand.

[Chrisbarnett]

as you can see, I didn't even follow directions with mine. lol

Yes, position is important. You want them as far away as possible, in my case, outflow in far left, intake far right, with the outflow pushing all the waste into the intake on the other side. Its important to do this because without the outflow pushing waste, the suction of the intake alone is quite weak.

that sounds like it would work if your worried about it. I notice when squirt kicks up sand, it went no higher than a couple inches before quickly sinking back down.

[JimmyJam]

Yea, but how big is Squirt? Mary Jane is about 7 inches long I'd say, I still need to measure her and will probably do so tomorrow.

Not to be off-topic, but what program did you use to make your avatar? I wanna make one like that but with of course my Mary Jane, and I don't know how to shrink the pic down so the avatar isn't ginormous.

[Chrisbarnett]

Squirts only 3 1/4". so he's not nearly as powerful. In your case, river rock around the intake sounds like a good idea.

I just uploaded it in photobucket, then clicked edit image, once that loads, there are tons of options. it's like a mini photoshop. my steps went like resize it, write borwnie on the image, make background of text transparent, and add a border, then adjust border thickness. Really simple!

[fultonh]

Hey,
I'm sick of the bare bottom tank look so I wanted to get sand...and I know you all said the sand type doesn't matter but the play sand I got was almost like powder, it was that fine. I didn't realize it was that fine till I opened it.

So my question is where has everyone else found there sand?

[Chrisbarnett]

You can use it. the grains are like sugar right?

I got mine from the aquarium shop and hardware store.