[SeedlessOne]

I use sand now in two tanks. Ive been using it for 4 years now. Ive used both brands of play sand from Lowe's and home depot. I HATE sand so much now. I am finally in the process of changing it out now to colorquartz. The sand looks good right after you clean it. I clean my tank and do 50% water changers weekly and %90 of the time my tank looks like crap. Fish **** might as well have a neon sign pointing down on it. If you ever get diatoms, even in small amounts your sand will look bad. And I'm not 100% about this but for some reason I believe the sand is releasing silicates in my 125g causing diatoms. Someone can chime in and correct me if thats not even possible. But one thing that is positive your tank is small so I don't think you will have as much problems as in my 72" tank. Well anyways there is my 2cents on sand. Good luck....

Edit: X2 on sand getting stuck in a magnet scrapper and scratching the tank!

 

[SeedlessOne]

Isn't colorquartz basically a sand? How will maintenance of that differ from sand?

I'm trying to decide on a substrate for my low light tank...I think I'm going with Turface pro grey with a white sand river...should this be a relatively low maintenance substrate? I'll use some river rock scattered along the rivers edge to help keep the two substrates from mixing too much (though I don't mind a bit of blending). Thoughts?

There are two grades of colorquartz. Grade S is sand like. Grade T is more like turface. I ordered a few bags of Turface, I found it to be way to light and I thought the some plants whould have a hard time stay put.