A club for owners of Parrot Cichlids

You shouldn’t worry about your parrots filtering the sand. It’s the gravel that can get stuck in their mouths/beaks when they move the rocks around.

I have had sand & parrots for years…here is a link to my gallery the pictures are a bit blurry due to my camera phone, but you can get an idea of my setup. The pictures are a couple of years old, but the fish are still the same ones (only bigger now)…

I have never had any issues with the fish/sand combo. Secondly, the net I have isn’t any special filtering net, it is the net I use to move my fish when I need to & it just happens to have holes just large enough for the sand to go through & captures most of the waste.

And finally, goldfish are filthy. That is why I only have the one & don’t plan on adding any others unless this one passes. The goldfish I have is a fancy/fantail. But be cautious with flowing fins…if your tank has aggressive fish, they might nibble on the fantail’s fins. Goldfish are not good at defending themselves (they aren’t very bright-or maybe it’s just mine) One goldfish doesn’t produce enough filth to create any issues in my tank (I have had my set-up for 4-5+ years)

The animals I have living together seem to work together to keep their home clean, which makes cleaning the tank less of a chore. I hope this clears some things up & any other questions, let me know & I will do my best to answer them. Good luck ;-)

I hope this doesn’t double post, my original didn’t show up even after closing the browser. I apologize if this doubles. I have had sand in my 55gal for years & my fish seem to really love it. My ratio of sands in my tank is 50% sterilized play sand, 25% dark blue sand & 25% light blue sand. (total of 50lbs of sand to cover about 1.5 -2 inches in my 55gal)

The first time you add sand to your tank, your filter will be over taxed & you will need to change it almost daily until it removes all of the smaller particles that float through the water. After that, the sand will stay on the bottom & the fish will shift it around to suit their needs. Also, real plants do quite well in sand & will root their way along the bottom of the tank securing the sand around the roots.

With sand comes different cleaning strategies...The "filth" will accumulate along the top of the sand & will be hard to remove with a tank vacuum without taking quite a bit of sand with it. I use a large fish net with holes just large enough for the sand to filter through & leave the filth in the net…rinse the net & repeat until most of the filth is gone.

I say most, because you will never get it all. (certain animals can help with this) I keep 1 gold fish in my tank for the little bits I can’t get, because it is the only fish that constantly rotates the sand by gulping mouth-fulls of the sand, swishing & spitting in a different location. This will help, but still not get it all. If you want perfectly clean sand most of the time, I would invest in invertebrates. I don’t know how you feel about invertebrates, but if you decide to try your hand at keeping crabs, they will keep the sand clean a lot longer by sifting through the sand and eating the “fishy leftovers.”

I’m sorry I got so wordy & I’m not trying to scare you from using sand, but it is a “horse of a different color” I think, in the long run, that sand has been the best for my fish & since I went to sand, I don’t think I will ever go back to gravel. Oh! And to answer your question…my parrots never “eat up” the sand. They swish with their fins until the sand is to their liking. The gold fish is the only one who gulps up the sand…then spits & repeats…lol