What to look for for substrate at HD.

[Guest]

I have a 50 dollar gift card for home depot, and i'm going on friday to cash it in, I was wondering what kind of substrate would be good to get from there? I will tell what I'm wanting. I want something a little coarser than sand, but a lot finer than normal aquarium gravel. I would prefer it as dark as possible. I would even be willing to sit with a hammer a bit if I had to to break up chunks. I will be putting this in a tank with guppies, and apple snails. Any help is appreciated.

Oz

 

[krap101]

theres 2 id suggest. the 1st one is a nice faded white but you may not like that. its aragnite. its 7$ for 50 lbs. it'll say straight from the carribbean. and its called tropical play sand

the 2nd one is pea gravel. its pretty small gravel but i dont know what you want. more of a sand or gravel?

 

[Guest]

I was looking some info up, what about some black beauty, it's a sand blasting sand I think. Here is something I found on it, that I don't know what it's effects would be, but it was an aquarium website...........

"It’s not really sand but powdered iron slag." also....

"Furthermore, these very fine particles contain iron, which means they are not inert." Which I have no idea what that means.

Oz

 

[krap101]

black beauty i wouldnt recommend. because its sharp. id go with the more expensive tajihan moon sand. at bigals its like 13$ for 40 lbs i think. shipping'll be like 8$ i think. havent checked recently.

 

[Bearfan]

Blasting sand would leech like a mad man. I would seriously advise against it. Unfortunately, HD has very little for aquariums that I find suitable.

 

[krap101]

http://cichlid-forum.com/articles/sand.php#3

theres a good site. tells you almost all you needa know