Where to buy nice gravel

[WiNGSPANTT]

Hi all,

I see a lot of pics with nice black and brown, natural looking tiny gravel. Where do you buy this? My LFS only has those neon, large rocks, and I imagine it's expensive to ship 10lb bags of primo stuff?!

 

[rich311k]

I have natural looking very fine gravel in my 29. You can click on the link in my sig to see it. It was estees gravel I bought at my LFS. You may meed to look around or ask them to order it for you. Have you considered pool filter sand?

 

[MyCatsDrool]

Well, if you want brown, you can buy eco complete, flourish or some similar aquarium planting substrate. Also, if you have something like a petSmart or PetCo nearby, they often have natural looking substrates.

For sand, go with pool filter sand. It is less expensive and looks fabulous. You can get it at any pool supply store, like Pinch-A-Penny

 

[theotheragentm]

For sand, go with pool filter sand. It is less expensive and looks fabulous. You can get it at any pool supply store, like Pinch-A-Penny

Pool filter sand was a pain in the butt to rinse out. It looks great, and it's $10 for a 50 lb bag which was enough for my 55-gallon tank.

 

[Marconis]

I am interested at getting sand as well. Looks awesome. At $10 for a 50 lb bag, I'd much rather get natural looking sand than paying $26 for two 25lb bags. How do you rinse the sand? It seems difficult.

Btw, (I don't mean to hijack your thread man) but do they have white sand of this sort? I like it better than a beige-like color.

 

[bs6749]

Pool filer sand is no pain to rinse out. You need a clean 5 gallon bucket. First fill the bucket 1/4 way and then rinse (I did mine in my bathtub) the sand several times. Use your hand to swirl around the slurryand try to get the smaller particles on the top. Then quickly pour out as much water as you can. This helps to remove the smaller stuff and anything that would want to float. Do this several times for each 1/4 bucket. Simply pour the sand into your tank and repeat this process to yield more washed sand.

 

[MyCatsDrool]

I didn't have much problem rinsing mine either. Also, my sand was pretty pale.

 

[theotheragentm]

Rinsing in a bucket is what I did. Maybe other people's experiences vary, but I ran 200 gallons of water through the sand, and it was still very cloudy. Perhaps there are different brands. Leslie's is the biggest supplier of pool supplies in the US and they claim world too. That's where I got mine, and rinsing was a good couple of hours easily, and after I filled my tank I did a 90% water change to get rid of the last bit of cloudiness. I don't want to discourage anyone from doing it, because it looks great. I just had a lot of rinsing to do.

 

[maxwell1295]

Rinsing pool filter sand is nothing compared to rinsing 3M ColorQuartz. It requires at least 3 times as much rinsing as regular PFS. Once the small stuff is rinsed away (as described above) there is little or nothing left is cloud the water. Running the filter overnight will take care of any residual cloudiness.

 

[Marconis]

Thanks all.

Does it require a lot of maintenance once in the tank?

 

[theotheragentm]

It really shouldn't require any more maintenance than any other substrate. I would recommend turning off the filter(s) when vacuuming sand though. Since it's lighter, some of it might get kicked up during vacuuming and you wouldn't want it all ending up in your filter. Also, since it's lighter fish and other living things will move it around more than with other types of substrate. There's not a way around this short of gluing grains of sand together.

 

[Marconis]

Hmm, that can get annoying. Do you know where I can find maybe smaller substrate, that almost looks like sand but is heavy enough to not float around everywhere?

 

[bs6749]

I have had no problems at all with siphoning pfs while the filter was on and my intake tube is about 3 inches above the sand in my 55 gallon tank. Pool filter sand grains are rather large compared to normal sand and for this reason it is better suited for planted aquariums as well. Do you plan on having any live plants in your tank? If so you should really consider pfs or another substrate that is large because sand can compact and kill the roots of the plants.

 

[Marconis]

Nope, no live plants. The only thing about pool filter sand is it looks rather beige, while I like a nice whiteish color.

 

[JRagg]

As far as the PFS that I got goes, it was really light in color. It's more of a "computer" white if that makes sense (the color that all old pcs and monitors used to be).

I can't think of anything that would be lighter in color except for white gravel (the stuff that you don't like).

I also had no problems rinsing mine at all. I spent less than 5 minutes rinsing and I had zero cloudiness. I'm guessing it may vary by brand. I put it in a 5 gallon bucket, took the bucket outside to my driveway, and stuck a hose in it. The floaties will rise up and flow out of the top of the bucket (when it overflows) and leave the heavier stuff at the bottom. I would do the same to rinse any sand.

 

[Marconis]

Awesome, sounds good thanks.

 

[theotheragentm]

As far as the PFS that I got goes, it was really light in color. It's more of a "computer" white if that makes sense (the color that all old pcs and monitors used to be).

Yeah, I agree. It's like a single sheet of xerox paper sitting on a dark colored desk. almost. My fluorescent lights make it look whiter too.

 

[bs6749]

The color of the pfs can also change with the lighting. More lighting makes it brighter and thus appear lighter. I too liked and wanted a "white" look but I have become very fond of the pfs look.

 

[plecoperson]

A very nice small gravel (it comes in sand-size too) is Red Flint. Purdy, medium-brown. Your LFS can probably get it, and it's sold for industrial purposes as well, so it should be easy to find if you like it. I have the small gravel in the tanks that don't have plants in them. If I had it to do over I'd probably do 1/3 of the next larger size added to the 1/8"-ish stuff I have.

 

[WiNGSPANTT]

awesome... too bad most pool stores in NJ are closed this time of year