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So i know that i cant have gravel in my turtle tank and i know that a good alternative is larger river rocks but i was curious how aquarium sand does?

I was thinking that he would probably kick it up a bit but other then that do i have to worry about him eating it and side effects from that - - -

There is the possibility of him eating some of it and becoming impacted. But with sand, it happens less frequently than gravel. Sand also makes the bottom very messy, with debris being trapped. But many people have had luck with sand.

I think I remember seeing site member Chrisbarnett saying he recently added sand to his turtles tank. You might want to p.m. him and ask how it's going for him.

Yes, I recently switched to sand in my tank. I have had it for about 2 weeks.

Actually it is the cleanest substrate other than a bare bottom.The stuff sits on top and cannot get trapped beneath it because the sand is denser than waste. Anything not caught by the filter just gets netted out of the tank.

A word of caution when using sand, Make sure you wash it out extremely well, all sand has some dust that needs to be washed out and can take forever to settle if you don't. I washed mine for about 10-15 minutes until the water ran clear and then some. I still got a bit of cloudiness.

When sand is kicked up by the turtle, it settles very quickly as well. Make sure that the filter intake is about 3-4" above the sand so that if he kicks any up by the filter it won't suck any up.

The sand granules are so small that if a turtle eats it, they can pass it pretty easily. The risk of impaction is actually very low.

here is a couple photos of my tank with sand bottom:



Hope it helps, Any other questions, feel free to PM me, I'll be happy to answer any questions.

i love the sand!!!! i have an qaurium like that except...the turtle would eat the sand T~T

Thanks.

I would bet that the turtle wouldn't eat the sand. When I set-up squirts tank, he took a bite of the sand and then spit it all back out. Hasn't bitten it since.

Sand doesn't taste good and gives no nutritional value, So I would think that the turtle will not keep eating it.

You wouldn't think a turtle would eat rocks either....but they do.

makes you wonder how they survive in the wild

Chris, keep us posted on how the sand works out. It looks great, but I think I would still worry about my turtle eating it. Does anyone else have sand in their tank?

Spotsmama,
That's a very good point. At least sand has a much lower impaction risk.

RESnTX,
I will be sure to keep everyone posted.

I just thought I would add some support for sand.

I have had my Red Eared Sliders for the past 11 years, and recently found this site. I have had sand for awhile now it is great! It looks better than gravel and is easy to clean. I haven't had problems with filters at all. I noticed that Maggie had eaten some, but does not effect her digestion. The cleaning was the easiest part. I dumped it in a bucket and then filled it up with water. The chemicals and small particles would float, so I waited a few minutes, and then dumped out the water slowly. I repeated it 5 or 6 times until I was dumping out clean water. I then put the sand in a pillowcase and slowly lowered and dumped the sand into the bottom. of the tank.

I have had gravel and bare bottom, and while bare bottom is easy to clean, I felt like it was not good enough for Sam and Maggie. My students and I love the look of sand. I just thought I would add some support for sand.

Do they dig and bury themselves in the sand? I might get it for my hatchling because his tank is pretty sterile.

res08,
I have never seen squirt bury himself, or dig in it for that matter, but he does like to walk on it a lot. When the tank lights are not on and you look through the side of the tank, you can see tons of footprints, it cracks me up.

Chris,

Why did you change from river rock to sand?

Melissa

Melissa,

I switched to sand because honestly, I liked the look of it better than river rock and there are many benefits to it. I hate bare bottoms, but I didn't like the mess of river rock trapping debris, Sand was the perfect middle ground because it is too dense for stuff to get trapped under so it was cleaner as well, Double bonus. I didn't like the look of river rock too much either.

I read about sand a bit, then saw a member on another board switch, when she did, she posted pictures of the sand settling, which was my worry, and how it all turned out. When I saw what it looked like in-tank I was sold on it.

So in the end, the main factors were
1. wanting a substrate that was clean with minimal hassle after start-up
2. looked nice
3. gave my tank a natural look and feel
4. gave squirt something to walk on that he couldn't possibly hurt his plastron by crashing around on rocks.