Sand Exchange

[AquaSump]

Hey everyone,

I have heard that doing a sand exchange is good to promote biodiversity in our tanks. How it would work is basically everyone would bring an 8oz cup of sand to the next club meeting. Then during the meeting we would gently mix all the sand together, then everyone that participated would get 8 oz of the mixed sand at the end of the meeting to put back into your tank.

thoughts?

Nick

 

[jjmcat]

This idea is great in theory but what else can be transferred from one tank to another besides biodiversity?What about a parasite or a bad bacteria that we don't want in our system.I am up for trading sand but I wonder how many else will be.

Want to trade sand

Jarrod Lee

 

[mutateddogbone]

i personally would not be up for a sand exchange. i think there is too high of a risk of exchanging pests than beneficial critters. on the market today, it is too easy to buy a certain species of pods, bacteria, etc., etc., than to risk sombody getting a pest. you cant dip sand.... a lot of species of bad critters, like flatworms, ich, and other crustaceans have a larval stage that is either pelagic, (free floating) or burrows to reproduce. with recent research, AEFW have been proven to have pelagic larvae and land on whatever they can, and grow into tank destroying little monsters.

not worth the risk IMHO