Which looks better?

[Steve]

How about some quick input here on which looks better to you guys because I'm having a hard time deciding which way to go with this. I am leaning towards one over the other but lets see what you guys think first.

Excuse the rough quickly photoshop job, but you get the idea I'm sure....

Which will look better in your opinions...White sand or black sand??

[SteveScheuring]

I like the white better and I think most fish will stand out better.

[African cichlid Keeper]

I say black sand. I used white on one of my tanks and it wash out there color.

[Sean]

I like white. It looks more natural

[Jaws22]

I think the black, Imo dark fish color up better.

[tugboat]

I think the Black would look better with your background color.

[Mission Man]

Depends on the fish.  Shallow water fish would probably do better with the white and deep water would probably do better in the subdued looking black sand.  I might think of mixing the two with mostly white with about a 10:1 ratio of white to black.

[Ron]

White - looks more natural.

[Ogre44]

I like to use Quickrete play sand.
It's a nice tannish-grey color when wet, and the fish seem to like it as far as texture goes.
It's less than $5 for a 50 pound bag so it's quite affordable.
The biggest downside is the fact that it takes forever to wash all the light stuff out of it, but it's worth it in the end.

[linuxrulesusa]

I vote white.  I did black on all my first tanks and by the end I hated it.

It depends on the fish - rainbow cichlids for example which have a lot of yellow/orange with a dark stripe turned almost black over the dark substrate.  Electric yellows also look muddy over black sand.  Some fish it doesn't really matter.  Some like and African Brown knife or various bichirs will lighten or darken over time according to the substrate.

Pool filter/tan sand is an option if you want a middle ground between the stark white and the dark black.

[SteveScheuring]

I used the pool filter sand and I am pretty happy with it thus far.  My tank has been active since February, 2013.  It is easy to clean too.

[bmarine]

I say white, i think it looks a little better with the background.

[Steve]

I should have said what I plan to stock this with too. It was a back and forth choice between all male peacocks and haps, or Frontosa. The all mle P&H tank won out. Mainly because of a something Ron said in the Frontosa thread I posted last week were he said to make sure I would be happy with all one fish that look the same. I know myself and the more I thought about what he said the more I realized I would love the fronts for the first month or two then kick myself for not getting something else because I like variety.

We'll I'm glad I asked about the sand here because I was leaning towards black lol. I have white in one of my 55's and black in the other. To me it seemed like when I changed to black the colors of the fish really shows up nice, but on the other hand white does look more natural, and in this tank being 31" deep the white would actually help to reflect the light a bit more in the tank as well. So now I'm reconsidering white again maybe.

I just want to be sure the first time because the last thing I want to do is change out 150+lbs of sand in a super deep tank lol

[linuxrulesusa]

Thanks for the clarification.  It really comes down to the individual fish, so I'd google the species you plan to add and look for pics of them on both light and dark substrate.  If the majority look better on black, go for black.  If the majority look better on white, go for white.  If you can't tell, go for tan. 

[Steve]

Never was a fan of tan for some reason. I had tan at one point in my one 55 and got rid of it real quick. Just wasn't my thing I guess.