How risky?

[plkdb]

I cant find a supplier for southdown or any of the sister companies close by, but am curious, how risky would it be to go out on a friends boat, and just collect some clean sand from the ocean? My tank isnt set up yet, so it would be in there with it to cycle. The beaches here have very nice clean white sand. Logically it wouldnt seem bad to me because most everything else is collected from the ocean for us to enjoy in our aquariums, with the exception of the few things that people have begun to raise in captivity.

 

[Guest]

Collecting sand from the ocean has been done before and prolly will be done for years to come... One thing though, I don't believe it is legal to take more than 1 gal bucket of sand per trip, per person, per day. This is for the State of Florida anyways... I have personally collected a couple gallons of coarse shelly sand from an inlet in Florida and it was full of pods and worms, as well as tiny stars and snails. One of the bad things about collecting your own sand from the beach, is getting polluted or infested sand. Some of the hitchhikers that are included, can be detrimental to your setup...Be careful

 

[astride13]

I have been gathering my own sand for years. I put Fort Lauderdale beach sand in my fuge recently. It's a bit browner than most like to put in a tank, but I did get many good hitchhikers. I took some white sand from Marvin Key in the keys also. It was very fine sand and had crabs, snails, worms and starfish in it. I took 5 gallons, but for the record I had 5 people with me.

Also, I never rinse the sand, but I have heard people have problems with pollution like metals and oils.

 

[plkdb]

Would it be better to collect the sand close to jetti, or further out away from it?

 

[steve-s]

As far away from boat traffic and other polutant emissions as possible.

Cheers
Steve

 

[bsheek]

Make sure you collect some shellfish as well. They are fantastic for cleaning and filtering the water and removing nitrates. Did you know that 28 clams or oysters can recirculate and filter a 55 gallon tank twice in one hour? Each one can filter as much as 4 gallons of water in one hour. Pretty impressive, HUH.