Sand Selection

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artoledo

Aquarium Advice Freak
Joined
Apr 20, 2007
Messages
343
Location
Miami, FL
Can I use play sand for my substrate? Lowes has a 50lb bag for $3.25! i figure i buy 2 bags and seed it with the 70lbs i have in my tank now and i should be good right?
 
Should be fine with it make sure it is silicate free tho ..as that can leach out and cause problems in your tanks .
 
My local HD has Bonsal play sand. I cant find anything on the net that says its not natural. Anyone know?
 
Hmm, did a quick google and it looks like it's silica sand. As long as the sand isn't pretreated in any way, it's fine for use IMO. Some don't like using silica sand becaues it supposedly can leach into the water and cause diatom problems and such...but glass is almost all silica and it doesn't cause problems. There just isn't enough evidence to back up that theory in my opinion.

Bonsal seems to be an Oldcastle company, the same people that made Southdown, the heavily touted sand. Play sand is great to use, though if you can find a sand equally cheap that is aragonite based, it will be better for your water, helping to keep it buffered.

To test for aragonite based sand, take some vinegar in a dropper bottle with you to the store. Drop some vinegar on the sand. If it bubbles/fizzes, it's aragonite based and thus will help buffer your water. Doesn't mean you can't use non-aragonite based sand, just that aragonite sand is, IMO, better. :)

I believe one of the more popular brands is Kolorscape.
 
My problem with your situation is that I would not use all 70 lbs of the already established sand. Sand is just too cheap to dump alot of the old sand in there. It contains alot of trash and waste in it that would cause a major spike. I know when I changed over from my 55 to my 125 I put all new sand in and seeded a couple cups of the old sand. Like I said as cheap as sand is it just wasn`t worth it to transfer all that mess in.
 
Should i use Saltwater from my LFS to fill the new tank or RO/DI water? I would hate to mix new water you know?
 
You can do either. If you get the water already made up at your LFS you can go ahead and put your sand in and put a plastic bag in there partially blown up and pour the water on the bag to minimize the sand storm that will be coming. I`ve seen others fill the tank about 3/4 full of RO/DI water and mix the salt with it and add the sand and rock couple days down the road once the salinity is where it needs to be. Once all the sand and rock is in then if more water is needed then just add SW from your LFS to the top. HTH
 
I know mixing new SW is a pain but it is so much cheaper and you can better control what is actually in the water. I haven't come across an LFS yet that I would trust for source water and or SW. Just picky about what goes in my tank I guess....
 
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