# Breakthrough discovery will keep your tank pristinely clean



## niko (Jan 28, 2004)

Allright, as the title suggests this is a joke, but as it often happens with my jokes if you are inclined so you can actually make the off the wall idea work.

Here's an "amazing", "incredible" video (as Napoleon Dynamite would say). I found it only because, as we all know, nowadays search engines and websites decide for you what you are interested in and hide the rest of the content from you. Apparently YouTube considers me to be very interested/fascinated with magic playsand.:






I understand this "magic" sand is sold at the magic Wallgreeens stores and it dates back to the magic 80's. It maybe plastic. That's all fine and dandy, I got to like it if YouTube says so.

Enough beating around the magic bush, here's the idea; Tanks like the one on the picture below have snow white sand foreground. 
http://www.aquascapingworld.com/images/ada_2009_1024.jpg

Because of whatever reasons many folk find it hard to keep the white sand staying white. Even the slightest algae growth makes the white sand look dirty. Any small debries show very well on the white background and are a pain to remove.

But if you used "magic" sand the water in your tank will only sit on top of it! There will be no water among the sand grains. Algae cannot attach itself to the sand grains because it cannot reach them! Algae can see the white sand, rush to invade it (screaming "Here comes troubleeee!") and will only bump into the surface of the water which now is not up but down too!

From that comes an even bolder idea - coat all decorations (wood, rocks) with a nano-coating that repels water severely. The decorations will appear under water but actually the water will only wrap around them without wetting them. No algae can grow. Debries will not really stick to them.

Same goes for the glass. Coated with hydrophobic layer it will not wet.

Nice, eh!

--Nikolay


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## niko (Jan 28, 2004)

post deleted by me


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## mudboots (Jun 24, 2009)

niko said:


> post deleted by me


Mixing it with Vasaline in the substrate layer will also prevent water from seeping into the pores...I wonder what the plants would do with their roots, and how to weigh the vasaline down so it doen't make a huge floating mat of substrate?


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## spypet (Jul 27, 2007)

I'm sure magic sand may have some interesting application to our hobby, but I'm not sure it will be as a localized algae deterrent, since many algae such as GDA and Clado happily colonize on plastic, silicon and glass. also consider if mulm and plant debris is not able to break down and penetrate the sand, you may have high phosphate generation and still have a layer of dirt resting above the magic sand (like you would on a glass bottom tank) but consider the same water flow that would move the debris off the sand, will move the sand as well. again, this is all guessing - you'd really have to buy some and experiment with it in a live nano tank to see how it's unique properties would interact with your biosphere.


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## Ricky Cain (Jan 23, 2004)

You think that's something? I've been making my driftwood out of silly putty for years and using Mr. Potato head bodies for iwagumi.

Seriously, it is interesting yet is there a natural looking Magic sand? The red is pretty cool but its mainly for the Spiderman or Superman layouts.


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## superg05 (May 17, 2011)

when i was reading this post last night while i thought your idea was creative thought don't aquatic plants roots have to be wet or is absorbing moisture through there stems and leaves enough? and how are you going to go about doing this is it the primary substrate with the plants planted in it or is it a top substrate with another beneath with plants in that soil? if so will the substrate beneath have moisture and the magic sand on top be dry also if that's the case what to prevent it from floating since magic sand likely has to be applied when there is already water present like in the commercials likely to keep water pressure forcing it down i look forward to hearing your results i have my own theories as to how this could go about looking forward to your data


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## fishyjoe24 (May 18, 2010)

what about siclia sand, and glass over it. I've though about that... i've used silica white sand and it turns brown after a long time being wet. i used it when i had discus and that's what happened.


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## niko (Jan 28, 2004)

superg05 said:


> ... how are you going to go about doing this is it the primary substrate with the plants planted in it or is it a top substrate with another beneath with plants in that soil?...


Eh, well if one really decides to explore the mysteries of non-wet sand in their tank they will have to deal with the fact that the tank practically has no substrate. Meaning mosses on wood/rocks, tied up riccia, ferns etc would be the first choice.

With a little more effort you can actually create pockets of wet substrate on your rocks and plant plants in there.

The idea is to maybe create a one of a kind weird planted aquarium that is more of a curiosity than anything else. The main problem I think is to keep the surface where sand meets water from looking like silver foil because of air bubbles.

From what I got in a PM I see that ther is white non-wetting sand on NewEgg.com for $8. Time for someone to give the funky idea a try in a nano tank perhaps. It's not going to be me, I have enough things to pospone right now.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...skim673X1261Xacdb45252ba94c5bce9750d389b154b6

--Nikolay


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## spypet (Jul 27, 2007)

substrate tease [smilie=s:


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## Tex Gal (Nov 1, 2007)

Never a dull moment!!


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## superg05 (May 17, 2011)

i did not mean to make it sound challenging was just thinking out loud in type don't give up on you grand idea experiment on a small scale in a jar or nano set up


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## jimko (Jun 10, 2007)

It clumps when you put in a large volume of water. You can probably mold it into something, but it looks pretty messy to work with. We won't know until someone tries it out. Not it!


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## Michael (Jul 20, 2010)

"The rewards of being sane are not many, but knowing what is funny is one of them."


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