Switching to sand curious.

[Chronos313]

Home depot has premium play sand for like 8 bucks for 20 or 30 kg and I'm curious to know if that's safe for an aquarium. I'm gonna run there tomorrow after work but I wanted some feedback on this one. It says it's washed beach sand also

 

[Bobby56]

I've seen lots of people here say play sand is OK to use. I personally have never used it. The new tank I just set up I used black diamond blasting sand

 

[brunettebaby4571]

Yeah I had play sand in my tank for a while and I just recently changed it to black sand. The play sand took foreverrr for me to get clean and even after I had washed it for hours it still clouded the water for a few days but afterwards it looked pretty good. The only reason I didn't like it too much was it gets dirty really quickly and you can see everything laying on the top of it and I also had to be careful during water changes because if the water got stirred up too much the sand would go everywhere. So I ended up spending a little bit more and got the black sand from petco and I love it. It didnt cloud my water up and it doesnt stir all up if I pour water on it. They also have it in other colors as well. I think it was definitely worth the extra I payed for it.

 

[Mr.Pleco]

I used play sand from Home Depot. I used it for my 50g Yellow labs/Mainganos and it did take a few days to settle but that's because the tank was full of water and I was just throwing it in after it was cleaned.
I used some one my 10g and that tank was empty and then I put a rock in and dumped the water on a rock. Much less cloud.

I haven't had any problems with it.

AND DON'T RUN YOUR FILTER TIL IT'S SETTLED! unless it's a canister...lol

 

[blert]

Home depot has premium play sand for like 8 bucks for 20 or 30 kg and I'm curious to know if that's safe for an aquarium. I'm gonna run there tomorrow after work but I wanted some feedback on this one. It says it's washed beach sand also

It is safe to use. It can be messy if you are not very careful when you do a PWC and if you have fish that like to kick up the sand when digging. Might want to look into PFS, it is heavier and will have less chance of getting kicked up into your filter.

 

[Jess1ca]

It is safe to use. It can be messy if you are not very careful when you do a PWC and if you have fish that like to kick up the sand when digging. Might want to look into PFS, it is heavier and will have less chance of getting kicked up into your filter.

+1 pfs or blasting sand