about sand bed

[farieslayer]

i recently bought the 75 gallons tank, and we decide to put in the about 70 pounds of play sands in it. and some cc, my question 1 is will the tank cycle if we put in the shrimp(eating kind), 2 damsels and with the hang on filter(whisper)?????? another question is there anyway to get crittles in the sands (except puting in lr, ls, and detivorous kits).

 

[fshhub]

1, yes you cna use shrimp to cycle
2, it is more humane to use shrimp(eating kind) than to use fish to cycle a tank and also less of a PIA to remove them when you want to replace them
3, they only way to get the critters is to add them, wheteher via lr or ls or a detrivore kit, BUT you can often get some ls from a lfs by the pund, and only purchas a couple of punds instead of bying a bag or alot of lr
HTH

 

[farieslayer]

ooops i forget one more question, will the sand bed be act as a biofilter? is not live sand.

 

[fshhub]

the sand bed will act as a biofilter, once it grows bacteria, pods and detrivores will also help, but the bacterai is the key ingredient, i would reccomend using a little ls aor some lr to get some creitters started in there, you don;t need alot to seed with, the more you use, the faster everything will grow, but at least a little, maybe like 2 or 3 x 3 to 5 lb pcs., and or acup or 2 frowm an existing tank

 

[ocellaris_keeper]

I went on a search engine and searched for detrivore kits - you buy the littel critters to create LS of the net.