Warning!!! Metal in sand !!! (Iron ore??)

[jhd]

Warning
I dropped my magnet on the sand cleaning glass in my 29gal and GUESS WHAT???!
When I got it out to clean it there was a lot of particles on it. Magnetized!!
I run the magnet though the original sand bag I still have and the same kind of particles were on the magnet.
NOW WHAT??
This is a Play Sand for sandboxes I bought, el cheapo Toys R Us stuff. I red it works ok.

Plants seem to like it, Amazon grows long leafs with red streaks on new leafs, (lots of iron?).
Cory cat flash sometimes against the sand (not against leafs, rocks), and have been doing that ever since I bought them a month ago. They should be sick by now if it was ich. I suspect these particles (small blackish, the size of small sand grains), maybe they are sharp and irritate their gills when they filter sand through them?
No other fish flashes, corys only.

I do not think I can get rid of this (iron ore maybe??) by running magnet through it.

I will never buy the substrate without running magnet through it first !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
What does it do for the fish long time?
Would you got rid of this substrate and start over?
Has anybody come across anything like this?
Help
HEEEEELP!
:x

 

[justDIY]

that sounds normal for sand from this area, in imho, is nothing to worry about.

I think the substance is called magnacite? its' basicly powered loadstone from a LONG time ago mixed in with the crushed granite sand common to the north.

the beaches here on lake michigan have large deposits of it, and you can see it align itself to the earths magnetic field, similar to iron filings to a magnet

 

[Allivymar]

The beaches align themselves with the earth's magnetic field? That I wanna see

 

[jsoong]

ROFL! That's too funny AlliV.

Maybe that's why we don't have sandy beaches on the Canadian side of the great lakes. You move them all to the US side with some giant magnet!

 

[Allivymar]

Omg. We've been found out

 

[jhd]

DIY says streaks of magnetic deposits align themself, not beeches. Ha.
Now how is that helping me? So far one opinion was to ignore it.
Should I? Would you?

 

[justDIY]

well, for us that keep planted tanks, one can never seem to get enough iron. in fact, we torture ourselves with extremely dusty substrates advertised as being iron rich.

so a sand, rich in magnetite would seem to be an ideal substrate for a planted tank?

for your cories stratching at the bottom, it's probably the fine grains of both sand and magnetite getting lodged in their mouth / gills / eyes that is giving them problems, not the iron itself. from what I've read, fine beach sand is bad to use for aquariums because it is so very fine... plus it makes cleaning the tank a gamble - one miss placed tiny grain of sand and a whole panel of glass is quickly ruined in an effort to scrub out algae