Sand Not Working Out So Well

[Amunet]

So today we went to the petstore to get some decor and some sort of substrate for our new 5gal tank.
Bf had his heart set on sand... b/c we eventually do want to get a larger tank and would like to use sand in it... so figured to try it out in a smaller tank to see how well it goes.

Anywho! He washed the sand, but alot of it kept floating to the top and ended up just going right down the drain.
Put sand in the tank, added water and BLEH.. alot more floating sand.

Did we just do something wrong? Why is there so much sand floating at the surface? Should we just scoop the floating stuff out?
If we turn the filter on, would the sand that it sucked up damage the filter any?

Just wondering if we did do something wrong b/c I've seen threads where people just redecorate their tanks with sand and everything looks peachy.. and then our newbie butts get some sand and everything looks terrible rofl

 

[Tessla]

I've used fine sand for potting soil and play sand, both from the hardware store and I've never had any of it float. I have had that happen with a very fine electric blue aquarium gravel however, it may be something to do with the coating. Is yours some sort of coated aquarium sand? Try mixing the top of the water where the sand is floating with your hand a bit to see if you can knock any air bubbles off of the sand. If all else fails, try some play sand from the hardware store, it's only $5 US or so for a huge bag of the stuff and it behaves very nicely.

You don't want to get any more sand in your filter than necessary as it will chew up the impeller, best to leave that off until you can figure out what's wrong with your sand.

 

[sophos9]

Floating sand? I know this may be a stupid question but is it sand or a silica substitute?

 

[Amunet]

I've used fine sand for potting soil and play sand, both from the hardware store and I've never had any of it float. I have had that happen with a very fine electric blue aquarium gravel however, it may be something to do with the coating. Is yours some sort of coated aquarium sand? Try mixing the top of the water where the sand is floating with your hand a bit to see if you can knock any air bubbles off of the sand. If all else fails, try some play sand from the hardware store, it's only $5 US or so for a huge bag of the stuff and it behaves very nicely.

You don't want to get any more sand in your filter than necessary as it will chew up the impeller, best to leave that off until you can figure out what's wrong with your sand.

Electric Blue colored sand is exactly what we got.
We've tryed mixxing the top but all that really ends up doing is getting out hands covered with the sand. Think I'm just gonna have to scoop it out if it doesn't sink.

No idea if it's real or silica as you say.. it just said aquarium sand on it lol

 

[Zeoth]

 

[Tessla]

This must be an issue with the electric blue substrates. I'd get rid of it and get some cheap sand from the hardware store.

 

[Zeoth]

 

[Amunet]

This must be an issue with the electric blue substrates. I'd get rid of it and get some cheap sand from the hardware store.

*nods*
Bf isn't gonna like it but I'll tell him heh.

I scooped out all the stuff on top, but as soon as I added more water, the disturbance from the water flow made more sand bubbles come back up to the top. BLEH is all I can say.... It looks so nice, but damnit if it's not annoying.

 

[RENDOG]

I've used Play Sand in the past and it took forever to settle and was tough to rinse out at first before putting in tank. I would let it settle in the tank and then turn the filter on like the next day but with the intake part up high on the tank (so it doesnt keep sucking up too much sand.

 

[Amunet]

Well I threw it all out. Just sorta chunked it into the yard lol
And we got some blue gravel that's the same color as the sand was heh.
MUCH easier!
I don't think we'll be trying sand again any time soon heh. Maybe some smaller gravel, but.. sand.. hmm... not so much... at least none of the colored stuff

 

[Miss Wiggle]

think it wasn't washed well enough, you need to wash sand loads and you will loose loads down the drain.

 

[sophos9]

when putting together my new planted tank I had no problem at all with sand, I used silver sand from Pets at Home...

 

[QuotheRaven]

(Yes Im still here on the forum Lol so darned busy year 12 is hard )

Alot of the sand will float as it's only small granules thorough washing and no filter on for awhile so the sand settle's would help. Coloured sand.... thats a new one it's hard to just get silica sand in my LFS

 

[NoRp]

i went to my store brought some play sand for 2.50
pourd half into a bucket
filled bucket
mixed sand
emptied bucket

reapeted twice

put sand into tank
filled tank
some tiny bits of sand floated
did a water change
then it was sorted all in all it took me aout 20 mins
and it looks about 20 times better than gravel

just go with normal colored sand

 

[Amunet]

Yeah... if we ever try sand again, it'll just be the regular stuff.. no more colored heh.
I would've prefered the regular sand, but bf was set on the blue heh.

Before I threw it out... you could see all of the sand bubbles resting on the bottom just waiting for their chance to come to the surface heh. And sort of disturbance would've made them come to the top.
It just wasn't a very good experience heh.