Sand or gravel?

As you all know I am doing the fushless cycle. One thing about it is that you can spend hours looking at an empty tank and planning for the future.

I have been thinking that I would rather have sand not gravel. The gravel I put in is a sort of dull colour and I like the natural look of sand.

Would it be ok to change it now? Is there any advantage/disadvantage in having gravel or sand?

I have pea gravel in mine brb, and I wish I had sand - I think it looks lovely.

I dont know if there is any difference in how you keep it clean but I think that you have to be careful with sand in case you get pockets of gas in it (?) Not 100% sure of that though.

I agree that sand looks great, and if you want to change it it would be easier to do it while the tank was empty.

A couple of things I would suggest - make sure you wash the sand thoroughly before adding it, and keep an eye on your filter if there is any muck in the water, just in case it gets blocked.

Finally - dont do what I did and buy coral sand, or your ph will be all over the place.

Is it a pain to change it when the fish are in - would you have to take them out and put them in a bucket or something while you changed everything?

Are there any drawbacks to having sand?

Sorry brb, just realised I'm taking over your thread!

Sand is great, we had playsand & it was too light. I found that it took a while to settle after a water change and if you turn the filters on too soon after, they get sand in them...which you don't really want!
It's probably best to pay that bit extra for aquarium sand, like Diana says.. wash wash & wash again!
There is a bit of a knack to cleaning it without sucking it all up but what I do if i suck loads up is just wash it in a fine net & put it back in the tank.
I give mine a good stir with a stick once a week, you can get gaseous pockets that build up that are dangerous for the fish. A childs plastic rake from the early learning centre works pretty well

I have changed mine while the fish were in the tank but i'd not really recommend it. It's alright but you have to be careful, my fish seemed to swim over to where i was putting it in for a nosey. If you do decide to do it when fish are in, lower it into the tank with a jug really slowly

I changed to sand and i like it! About from the cleaning to make it look nice, but it does look nice and is kinder on corydoras barbels