Cant find Sand, what now???

[badfish]

After visiting three Home Depot's, a Lowes, WalMart and two Local garden shops i came up empty handed. All of the stores had the quickrete brand, and one of them had white play sand but it contains silica. I went to the pet store and they have 30lb bags for 24.99, and i need 120lbs. does anyone know where i can get some, order it online? I live in Albany NY. I was all ready to get started today and then this.

Thanks,

- Jeff

 

[stusclan]

try toys r us

 

[badfish]

so i went to toys r us, and they dont have the right kind either, so i went back to Home Depot, and the guy said that they have tropical play sand on order, but prob. wont get it for a month or two. That puts a damper on my plans. Anyone else run into this problem, what did you do?

 

[SkinnyPete]

I don't think HD can really tell when their orders come in. I've had probably 10 stores look up the sku for southdown, so I'm getting to be an expert in HD stocking procedures. They can only see # on hand, and # on order. Everywhere I have gone has told me 0 on hand, 0 on order. Start of February I was told that the tropical play sand comes in at the end of February. Now I'm being told It comes in at the beginning of April.

I bought the white play sand that you probably saw at HD. I'm setting up a 110 gallon this coming weekend and I"m going to lay down an inch or two of the white sand, throw in my dead rock, and a couple shrimp and a scoop of live sand to start my cycle. In a month or so, before I get fish - if HD has southdown in I'll try to figure out a way to add it (probably a pain). If not, I've given up. I contacted Yardright about their tropical playsand via email to see if any will be available in the northeast. Will post if I get a response.

 

[badfish]

yeah i just contacted yardright, waiting for their reply, i called and been to a couple of home depot's, some say in a couple of weeks, some say they dont think they carry it anymore, Anyway, i dont know if i should wait, or suck it up and spend 100 bucks for it at the pet store.

 

[badfish]

if i have to buy the sand from the LFS, what would i have to buy. They have the caribsea sand, but it says its good for shallow sand beds up to one inch. I want a 4 inch sand bed. Would the white playsand from HD that has silica in it be fine? Please help, dont know what to do. Would 90 pounds be OK. Some people at Home Depot say its a matter of time, others say its not gonna come in.

 

[SkinnyPete]

Trust me, badfish, I've been obsessing over this sand for months and I've researched it. What you are looking for is any aragonite sand as opposed to silica based sand. The play sand your talking about and the one I bought is silica based. The silica sand is not really toxic to fish, but it has sharp edges on the small crystals making it potentially harmful (not really sure how drastically harmful) to sand sifting inverts and the like. Silica based sand also does nothing to buffer PH like aragonite sand does. Those are the two differences. You can absolutely get away with using it in your aquarium (and many in this forum do - they even use the quickrete playsand). Just be aware of those two factors - sharp grains and no ph buffer. Other than that, and please someone correct me if I'm wrong, the white playsand will be perfectly nontoxic to fish and shouldn't change water conditions.

- S. Lo

 

[Felf]

check out your local garden shop, they might be able to get what you're looking for

 

[SkinnyPete]

Oh, and badfish, check out the calculators link on this site for the sand depth calc. It will tell you how much sand you will need for your tank's dimensions.

 

[badfish]

hey skinnypete.

yeah i checked that out, i need roughly 120 pounds, and another calculator said 110 pounds. what if i put 100 pounds of the Silica white playsand with the carib sea playsand on top, do you think that would be safe for sand sifting fish. And i am gonna call the garden shops tommorow. TIA

 

[badfish]

and whats this about PH Buffer? Can you explain this a little more.

 

[SkinnyPete]

Aragonite helps to buffer the PH in your water to keep it at a satisfactory level, but salt is a buffer as well, so I can't imagine it can make that huge of a difference (but, keep in mind, I haven't used this silica sand before so I'm kind of talking without real backup).

I'm putting down a 4-5 inch sandbed. I'm going to do what you said - lay down 2 inches, start the cycle then if southdown becomes available, throw it on top. I would assume, however, that you would need a couple inches of the aragonite sand on the top to play it safe. Either way, its going to get mixed in by fish and inverts. Maybe someone else on this forum that has used Quickrete or other silica based sand can chime in with real world experience.

 

[badfish]

yes please, would a two inch sand base made of silica with the cribi-sea argonite sand on top be allright?? Is there any other alternative to southdown sand?