# Black & White Sand Mixed?



## Fishly (Jan 8, 2010)

Has anyone done this in a planted tank? Did your fish or shrimp get darker or washed out compared to straight black or white? Pics would be awesome.


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## Knotyoureality (Aug 3, 2012)

I used a mix of natural/black sand in a lot of my nano tanks and planted vases as it added a little visual interest and helped hide the inevitable bits of debris. It looked good, but didn't translate well when I tried it in larger tanks and looked especially bad when I tried it with the finer pure white sand as the black sand had a consistently high grain size and would tend to rise to the surface. The overall surface area in nano's and picos is small enough that the grains tend to get blown around randomly and even a careful water change will rearrange the top layers to bring more of the lighter color to the surface; in larger tanks, the dark grains start to gather in drifts around plants and in hollows. If mostly black sand is used, the sprinkling of white sand on the surface mostly just looks like dandruff.  

I've got one tank now with pure black sand and I really love how the plants pop and even cull cherries color up with richer reds/wines. Bit of a mess to try and switch my other tanks over, though I've considered it--and the solid black, although lovely, has it's own drawbacks--it's noticeably artificial if you have large swatches of it visible, you lose some of the high contrast/shaping affect as shadows on driftwood and under plants disappear against the substrate, and plant debris shows up like crazy (as do burrowing MTS). 

Grabbed this shot of one of my nanos showing the mix I used:


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## defiesexistence (Sep 13, 2010)

I had Este's sand mixed in equal amount when I had my planted coldwater 55g. Looked awful, and also washed the goldfish and wcmm out, nor were the plants showcased well. There was near no shadow for contrast since the white was too reflective. Reality's blend looks good though, natural.

I wish I had pictures. No, wait, I lied. I don't; it was that bad


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## Clear Water (Sep 20, 2014)

I have mix the two and like the look. It soften the white and isn't as bright. I only mix about 1/4 black to white. I think if I started another tank I would mix black, white and brown together. Wish I could get photo but my camera isn't working.


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