Well, got to talking with him about the benfits of sand and he started to find something on google. I asked him what he was looking for and he said, "Where I can ask questions about aquariums." I said I'm a member on a forum, and he wants to know the Do's and Don'ts with Sand and Freshwater.

IMO, personal prefrence......

Do rinse really well
Do not add unless all water is empties or a new tank.
Do not use un-safe sand
do get enough at once...........the list can go on and on.

Need all you can get MC.

Do put sand in your tank...much better than gravel IMO.

Like MC said the biggest thing is to thoroughly rinse the sand before adding it to the tank to remove all the fine particles. Once you place the sand in the bottom of the tank put a rock or plate in the bottom so that when you add water it doesn't stir up the sand too much. Check out this link...

http://www.freshwatermadness.com/tank-setup-f10/29-gallon-tank-setup-t359.htm

It talks about when I added sand to my 29gal. and how I rinsed and cleaned it.

One thing that I would add is to make sure to stir the sand while doing water changes. This keeps deadly gas pockets from forming that will harm if not kill your fish. Malaysian Trumpet Snails are good in helping with this.

The only con I see to using sand is stirring it up with large rock formations, the poo and waste stays on top, and if it gets stirred up it gets in your filters causing more maintnance. I only have it in one tank now but I do like it a lot for the look and for my viewing pleasure as well.

Ive always wanted sand but never have tried it. Tanks look real good with sand!

Just make sure you have a guard or a prefilter for your filter. Sand does bad things if it gets sucked up in there.