Sand or gravel

i just bought a second hand 150 litre tank use as my breeding tank its identical to my community tank the guy was using black sand and i normaly use gravel just wondering what others prefer it did look nice but not sure if ok for breeding bristlenose

as an added bonus he also had a nice six month old male so i can swap him over to rest my albino male who been fanning egg three months in a row

If you like the sand then use it. From my experience bn don't really care when it comes to substrate as long as there's a cave in there

thanks kfenk it did look nice but i have always used gravel so unsure is sand aesier than gravel to keep clean with all the poop we get from BN

As with other things sand has it pro's and cons, one of the biggest cons is that sand can compact and form anaerobic dead spots where anaerobic bacteria can release toxins. Using something like a plastic fork on a weeekly basis you can rake the sand to help prevent this. Some people who use sand also use the much maligned trumpet snail to help aerate the sand, which is another subject with pro's and con's.

When cleaning a sand substrate it always a good idea to turn off filters to prevent it getting drawn into the impeller and causing damage.

trumept snails

man i hate those things! i can see why people would use them but they were such a pain for me! too me ages to get rid of them and every now and again one pops up.

I like sand in breeding tanks because the poo sits ontop of it and makes it easy to clean. In a breeding tank you dont need the sand to be deep, mine in the equlivent of about half a cm deep across the whole tank but gets blown around so that some spots its clear class and others in a cm deep or so. never get any dead spots like that

I have trumpet snails in my 2x 4ft tanks and 3ft tanks. Started off as a solo snail hitch hiked in driftwood and they just multiplied from there. They started out in one 4ft but when I transferred half the gravel into the other 4ft they got moved too. I purposely transferred some to the 3ft as it has sand substrate and for reasons stated in another post they do a good job of keeping the sand air pocket free.
Now back to the question. I have both sand and gravel in my tanks. There are pros and cons but like I said it comes down to personal preference. Gravel is easy to clean but the all the waste does get right to the bottom. With sand the waste just sits on the top but needs cleaning more often.