Moon Sand

[Da Squid]

I am on the fence about picking up some black moon sand for a future 55g planted tank (low light for starters but will probably upgrade once I get comphy).
Has anyone come accross any good deals on this stuff lately? At 20 pounds a bag, I'm guessing I'll need around 5 bags which is probably getting out of my price range. I was hoping to find some sort of plant friendly substrate that wasn't the blinding white pool sand.

 

[kangster]

playsand at homedepot is really cheap
and the color turns brownish when wet...
kinda looks like a desert...with stem plants sticking out from it
and its really easy to siphon out the poops and uneaten food because you see them sitting on the top and they dont get stuck in between

 

[joy13]

I haven't tried it but several people are using it on a couple of different forums 3m quartz sand. All you have to do is google it and you will find several forums to check out their results. The thing about play sand it compacts down so easy even with MTS that I had problems with several of my plants.

 

[Da Squid]

Playsand will most likely be what I end up going with, but I wanted to explore a few other options first before rushing into anything. Thanks, I'll look into the Quartz sand.

 

[SWerner13]

people use kitty litter that would be interesting lol

 

[Retaks]

I have it in my 55 gal. I used 3 bags and got about 2"-3" of coverage on the whole tank. As for the plants i dont care for it. Im going to switch to something else now that im trying plants out. The major thing i dont like about it is all the crap sits on top so im going a gravel vac every 2 days to clean it up or my whole tank turns into a pile of crap in the bottom.

 

[bs6749]

Tahitian moon sand is pretty worthless for plants and there are much better substrates which the plants could benefit from substantially. Something like Eco-Complete, Flourite, or my personal favorite, which is ADA Amazonia II Aquasoil. It buffers the pH in an acidic range which is great from my CRS/CBS and the plants benefit from the nutrients as well as the acidic pH.

 

[cwt]

yeah if you're going to plant with moon sand, count on using a lot of anchors. And count on a LOT of rinsing... man is that stuff dusty. I have one bag worth in my 10G, wasn't totally dust-free after a dozen rinses, can't imagine what it will take to clean 5 bags! I think the suggestions of others are preferable to the moon sand.

 

[FishCrazyBenBOMB]

I got Tahitian moonsand in my 5G heavily planted tank. I know it doesn't give benefit to my plants, but it looks great in my tank. If I would of known I was going to get this into planted tanks and aquascaping I would of still might have chosen the moonsand, but it might be hard with eco-complete and such out there. I never cleaned my sand either, just put it straight in. It did turn the water a greyish color at first, but it lightened up before the night ended.

 

[bs6749]

Another bad thing about moon sand that I forgot to mention is that it is fine grained and it will compact and kill the roots of your plants. You could still keep Java ferns, anubias, and mosses in the tank. All of these actually shouldn't be buried in the sand. I may end up going with Tahitian Moon Sand in a couple of my shrimp only tanks because it will make the colors pop. That's really the only application I could see it being useful for to be honest. It's too abrasive to use for bottom dwellers like cories and plecos.

 

[Da Squid]

Wow, thanks everyone. I wasn't expecting to see any negative reviews on the stuff but certainly value your opinions. I suppose the moon sand is very similar in price to the beneficial plant substrates so I would be silly to pay all that and use something with no added benefits. Plus they are also blackish in color right?

I've heard the eco completes and fluorides were just as dusty as the moon sand though? Does anyone know around how many 20 lb bags are needed to get a good 2 or 3 inch base for a typical 55 gallon tank?

 

[bs6749]

4-5 bags of Eco-Copmlete should be enough to give you 2-3" of substrate. Flourite actually comes in several colors such as red, black, etc.