The friendliest place on the web for anyone with an interest in aquariums or fish keeping!
If you have answers, please help by responding to the unanswered posts.
I bought regular playsand at lowes and it worked great. Silca sand should be fine also. Just remeber to rinse it really good and put laterite under it or have nutrient tabs for the plants. In my tank I have a thin layer of peat moss, laterite, and than the playsand.
Sand is a wonderful tank substrate. Gravel works also, but if I was going with gravel I'd choose a plant gravel like Fluorite, for instance. Sand is much cheaper, tho, and like Todd2 mentions, just stick some root tabs in there for the root feeding plants.