Play Sand as Substrate?

[SomeRandomGuy]

Hi,

I have a 55 gallon fish tank with 5 fish in it 2 Ryukin goldfish, an Oranda, a Wakin, and a Albino Brislenose Pleco. All of them are pretty small. I currently have a barebottom tank. I'm considering adding some substrate and plants for them. They always look bored unless they see me and I feed them.

I was thinking of putting sand in since I know gravel isn't good for them because ammonia builds of more quickly due to the food and waste. The only sand they have at my LFS and Petco is Black and White sand. But I prefer my tank to look a little more natural and something cheaper. so I'm thinking of using play sand.

Should I use play sand? Or is it bad for Goldfish and that I should just use the sand made for fish.

 

[ZxC]

You can use it, but it has very inconsistent grain size, can "pack" down and usually is really dirty and dusty.

Some pool filter sand is a more tan color, maybe look around for that?

 

[Toad]

Pool filter sand is really nice ans super cheap, I bought enough for a 75g and it cost like 14 bucks. It's heavy enough for it to not stir up as much as play sand, or go in the filter. You can alsp check out black diamond blasting sand for a darker look, which would make the fish really pop out against the color. Whichever you pick, make sure you rinse rinse rinse the crap out of it.

 

[eternal_irony]

I can second the above from experience. Spend hours rinsing playsand only to have it make a catastrophic mess when I got it in the tank.

Switched to pool filter sand, swirled it in a bucket of water to get rid of any dust and it was great. Not sucked up by the filter or syphon when doing water changes and it's a dark tan colour that looks much better than pale playsand