Sand

[Katchan]

First time I purchased sand was from a local hardware store, at $5.70 for 40kg of paving/play pit/pet sand very dirty but fine otherwise. I had to get some more yesturday and checked out the local landscaping centre and the had varius type of sand for about the same price per bag (usually sell by the cubic meter) but the nice was they had two types of washed sand sand, I chose to go with the white pre washed and all it took was a quick rinse (less than 10 minutes for a 3' tank). It's probably worth a quick check of the local landscaping/large gardening supply places in your area.

katchan

 

[colegamby]

i have some sand i got from my lfs a couple dollars for a bag and i washed it for 30 minutes maybe settled very quickly and looks very nice

 

[Paul_MTS]

my current tanks have fine dried silica sand which i never bothered washing and my new tank will be using same as jflowers, play sand from Homebase.

and i won't bother washing this either, i'll just load my sump up with filter floss.

but the trick is to fill the tank so you don't disturb the sand.

 

[nc_nutcase]

I bought some black sand'ish stuff from Pet Smart that was designed to enhance plants (or at least was labeled as such)

I rinsed it slightly and put it in. The aquarium was nasty cloudy for about 3 days when I broke it down and rewashed it. Round two was a different story. Took a matter of a couple hours and the water was crystal clear. I would say it's worth the time to wash it.

Also, during the first try... the 'dust' that floated in the water making it cloudy settled on everything. There was this ugly gray 'dust' covering every plant, rock, piece of driftwood, etc in the entire aquarium.

I'm not saying you have to or you should... but my first lesson in sand is that I have to wash it thoroughly, and as mentioned, it will save me a ton of time in the future.

 

[OoHeatheroO]

my current tanks have fine dried silica sand which i never bothered washing and my new tank will be using same as jflowers, play sand from Homebase.

and i won't bother washing this either, i'll just load my sump up with filter floss.

but the trick is to fill the tank so you don't disturb the sand.

Where did you buy the silica sand?

 

[OoHeatheroO]

I bought some black sand'ish stuff from Pet Smart that was designed to enhance plants (or at least was labeled as such)

I rinsed it slightly and put it in. The aquarium was nasty cloudy for about 3 days when I broke it down and rewashed it. Round two was a different story. Took a matter of a couple hours and the water was crystal clear. I would say it's worth the time to wash it.

Also, during the first try... the 'dust' that floated in the water making it cloudy settled on everything. There was this ugly gray 'dust' covering every plant, rock, piece of driftwood, etc in the entire aquarium.

I'm not saying you have to or you should... but my first lesson in sand is that I have to wash it thoroughly, and as mentioned, it will save me a ton of time in the future.

What is the best method you found in washing your sand?

 

[nc_nutcase]

I put the equivalent of 2 gallons of sand in a 5 gal bucket...

filled the bucket with warm water (more for my comfort than cleaning... but still important) swooshing it around the whole time...

When the bucket got full I waited a second (literally) for the sand to settle then dumped off the cloudy water...

Repeat... repeat... repeat........

The stuff I had was extremely 'dusty' so it was a pain to wash. Pool filter sand or play sand should clean up after 2-3 fill/dumps. It took me about 30-45 minutes to clean 30lbs of sand'ish stuff. I'd guess half that to do the suggested sands.

 

[Paul_MTS]

i got my fine dried silica sand from a agregates supplier. not sure what the US equivilant is.

somewere that supplies lots of different types of stone, rocks, gravel..sand!!