use real beach sand?!?!?!?!?!

[wright4lfe]

alright my friends-

i have a few 5 gallon buckets full of genuine beach sand from beautiful huntington beach, ca. i've been thinking about changing over my 46gl bowfront to sand for awhile now and was thinking of using this newly acquired sand.

are ther any toxins/poisons i would need to worry about? any potential heatlh risks? inhabitants are 5 emerald cats. 1 5in green severum and few dither fish.

 

[Hrafnkel]

I wouldn't do it. You have no idea what kind of stuff could be in that beach sand, diseases, parasites, and all that. Plus if it's from the beach it wouldn't be unreasonable to think it may have sea salt on it, or stuff that can raise your pH.

 

[talloulou]

I wouldn't use sand that I found on the beach only cause it's impossible to tell what's in it and will likely have high carbonate components. Also I think it's illegal to take sand from most or all United States beaches.

 

[bosk1]

[sarcasm]Toxins/poisons in sand from Huntington Beach? No way![/sarcasm]

 

[Devilishturtles]

I agree. Aside from natural pollution, there is human contaminants all over that sand. I would not use it, if I were you. 8)

 

[rich311k]

I just think of all the cigarettes that must have been put out in that sand. EEEwwwww

 

[Blazeherd2306]

I agree. It doesn't matter how secluded the beach is. Pollutants from boats, etc. will wash up on the sand.

 

[malkore]

I also agree. I was trying to think of a way you could bake the sand to sterilize it...but that wouldn't do anything for chemical contaminents, oil, etc.

 

[u2_Crazy]

maybe I'm ignorant but aren't tropical fish in their natural habitat exposed to all sorts of pollutants (cigarette butts, boat poluution, human pollution) I'm no fish expert by any means, but other than the salt water connection, I don't see why it couldn't be used.

 

[bosk1]

u2_Crazy, you are absolutely correct. However, in their natural environment, you have tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, or even millions of gallons of water to dillute the pollution (and even more if we are talking about the ocean). Plus you have WAY more plants and natural cleaners. A home aquarium, no matter how big, is a relatively small, and very sensitive environment. One article I read said to think of your tank as a large test tube with live organisms (ie. your fish) living in it. Any small impurity can quickly contaminate the tank, even if it might not do so in nature. Due to the amount of HIGHLY toxic junk people have dumped along our coastlines, either accidentally or on purpose, using sand from a beach--especially a beach in Southern California--is a really bad idea.

 

[u2_Crazy]

bosk, that makes sense. I didn't really think about the volume of water

 

[wright4lfe]

thanks for the insight.

as to the legality of me having the sand. i'm a member of the local surfrider foundation chapter and after assisting in a beach clean up i was told by a few members of the parks dept (also old friends from high school) that if i wanted to take some home to feel free. i took enough home to setup a sand box for my son to play in and have enough left over for my 46gl bowfront.

no big deal though, i'll just go today and buy from the lfs.

 

[nitrous]

the lfs would proly be expensive, most likely go to the local hardware/ pool store and get some pool filter sand. it would most likely be much cheaper than the lfs around here i think ive seen it for like 50bls for maybe 5-10$ and 1 bag of 50lbs would proly be good for ur 46 bow

 

[u2_Crazy]

It's funny, the sand is fine for our kids to play in but not our little fishies!

 

[bosk1]

Well, the sand is fine for your kids to play in, but would you run some water through it and let them drink it? That's what the fish would be doing every moment of every day.

By the way, do you like U2?

 

[BillD]

I have used sand/gravel from a beach on Lake Ontario, after sterilizing with bleach. I find it rather humorous that everyone is against using the sand from the beach, but would probably find no problem with that same sand if it came prepackaged and was purchased from a store. Unless you know exactly where the sand or gravel you are buying came from, how could you possibly know if the sand is free of potential pollutants or toxins?

 

[Hrafnkel]

Because companies selling sand for aquariums aren't going to stay in business very long if their sand has toxins and pollutants in it.

 

[talloulou]

Well many places have seemingly constant problems with beach erosion as it is so I just think it would be irresponsible for fish keepers to start hauling more sand off their local beaches for the home aquarium.

 

[jibboo]

personally, I see everyone elses point ... but if you want to do a test and give us some feedback. Rinse the sand thoroughly, then take one of your buckets and do about 1 gallon of sand and fill the rest of the bucket with water (or some other ratio of sand to water) ... then test the water after a week and see what if anything has happened to it. Run a few tests to see how the sand is affecting the water quality.

If you find that the sand doesn't appear to be negatively affecting the water params, then maybe put some test fish in it for a while to see what happens. Even the best test kits won't be testing for unknown toxins or things that may be poisonous to fish. This would be really beneficial if you had an extra tank to run a bunch of tests in.

I don't think any of us have tried it, but it would be wisest not to just blindly dump the sand in your freshwater tank. Personally, if you still wanted to do it despite the nice advice from others here ... I'd test it thoroughly before adding it to my tank.

I would suggest pool filter sand as a cheap alternative to real beach sand.

 

[BillD]

Where I gathered my sand, there is also gravel and rock. There is new sand being made every day as the rock and gravel is moved about by wave action. Sand and gravel taken from any surface source has the risk of containing toxins or pollutants. It would be almost impossible to pinpoint the sand as the source of toxins in a tank, and they would have to be there in a large amount as PWCs would be constantly diluting it. One thing that may be preesent in a lot of the play sands is iron filings. I remember, as a kid, dragging a magnet through the school sand box to collect iron filings. The naturally occurring sands and gravels are often more attractive and natural looking than the pool filter sands, which are usually white. White sand doesn't occurr in any freshwater environment that I know of. If you want to have a natural looking tank, the sand/gravel and stone should match as they would in nature. To me, red lava rock just looks bizarre on white sand, but that is my opinion, and to each his own.