black or white sand?

[Harry]

I plan on starting a larger tank, five to ten gallon. This will house Opae Ula, dwarf hermit crabs and Pipipi snails. I'm debating the color of the sand or gravel. I currently use coarse black sand. It shows up the Opae but I know that white sand will show them up better. However, my understanding is that white sand gets dirty, so I may be better aesthetically with black. Any thoughts?

[KenCotigirl]

I am using both. Go with white or maybe a mixture of both with white as the predominant color. The black looks great for a little while. However any debris stands out on the black and looks ugly. Since i do not perform water changes it builds up and looks worse. The white does not show the debris. That is my vote. ( white with black 90%-10%)

[BostonJill]

My 5 gallon tank has white sand which is now dirty-ish after a year and a half. My little half gallon tank has black sand and that still looks nice after about six months. Maybe a mix of sand would look nice I never thought about doing that. Let us know what you decide.

[Mustafa]

How about red sand?

[Harry]

As an add-on item at amazon, you can get nice RED lava rock, about the size of nickels and dimes. Not suitable for building caves and hiding places, but great as a red ground cover for a portion of the tank.

[Mustafa]

If small lava rock (about the size you describe) is your thing, you can get them really cheap from Home Depot or Lowe's out here in California...10 or 20 lbs for under $10. The red sand was a joke, of course. Great for red shrimp to camouflage in, not so great for the human observer...