Building Sand?

[chilledtim]

I wish id known about cheap play sand from argos ect 2 months ago. i spent £15 on aquatic sand for an aquarium then found out i could get the same amount for £2.49 from argos.


as someone has already said, building sand is bad stuff, stains your hands orange, lots of chemicals and dyes. with quality sand as cheap as £2.49 for 15kg treat your tank to some good stuff.

 

[geo7x]

B & Q for the play sand. to be fair a really nice aquarium sand would probably cost less than £10 for a 20g

ive done a 7g, 15g and 20g on one bag of sand from argos for about £3

 

[J4MES]

Thanks for everything guys, just 1 question. How would I go about washing the stuff?

J4MES

 

[geo7x]

put sand sand in bucket, fill with water, swill around, wait for about 2 seconds and then pour away. Then repeat until the water is clear after a couple of seconds.

 

[J4MES]

OK thanks.

How long do all the fine sands take to clear up?

J4MES

 

[geo7x]

well some people say hours but i disagree, with argos playsand im usually done after about 5 or 10 minutes and my waters never been cloudy from it.

 

[Galedav]

its made of slightly different stuff and if it doesnt work with triops it definately wont work with any thing else either.

 

[MadMan-JaMeS]

i have builders sand in my tank cost something like £1.70 for a bag....i put it in a wheelbarrow swished the water round left it came home put the sand into some old tights and hung them up and put it in my tank and it has never been cloudy !

but i would go with play sand just to be safe

 

[jane76]

ive bought b&q childs sand today and ive emptied my tank again,u couldnt see through my water i know u should probably let it settle but it looked horrible so think im goin try argos instead

 

[BecciMac1987]

Im such an idiot, I read this as you wanted to 'build' sand. I was expecting a thread about rubbing stones together to create small particles......

 

[nickelplates]

As someone who has spent twenty years working in a technical capacity for a company that deals in sand (amongst other things) I can say with confidence that building sand does not contain chemical additives of any kind, the price is so low no supplier could afford to add them even if there was a reason to do so. However the term building sand really only tells you that it is sand that fits a particular size distribution (suitable for making mortar) and for aquarium use I wouldn't touch it with a barge pole for the following reasons:

1. It usually contains enough fine material to make it extremely tedious to wash

2. It may contain trace minerals that will leach out into the water such as iron oxide and others that may have adverse effects and there is really no sensible way to tell.

3. Geologically it may be (or at least contain) almost any type of rock so it may well have significant amounts of carbonates, much like adding chunks of limestone to your decor only worse because it is fine and presents a much larger surface area.

4. Play sand is very cheap and is pretty much gauranteed to be almost all silica and pretty clean to start with so will be easy to wash.

And yes one of my tanks has a sand substrate, it is Argos play sand.