What Sand Do You Use

[yabbiebee]

just wanting to know what type of sand you all use. i have black sand at the mo but have used play pit sand to save on cost. but its a real nightmare to get clean lost my mind when watching it boil. and their was sand all over my house lol

 

[boardy]

I use B&Q Kiln Dried Sand on top of AquaPlant Complete Substrate. I'm going to be planting the tank pretty heavily soon.

Adam

 

[yabbiebee]

what was that like cleaining ? got any pics of it in your tank

 

[sarah86]

pets at home black sand, its fab and didnt really need rinsing either would recommend to anyone, was well worth the extra money

 

[yabbiebee]

what size bags do they do it in the black sand i got was from madeinhead aquatics cost about £30 for about 2okg

 

[dthoffsett]

Community tank - play sand
Mbuna tank - aragonite

 

[silverchild23]

I just used Argos Play Sand. £2.99 or something for 15kg. I only needed 2 bags for my 240L tank.

Everyone says wash it thoroughly - but you don't really need much more than a rinse I found. Whatever you do to it it will cloud the water such is the nature of sand - but it will settle in a couple of days and does no harm to the fish. My eheim cleared it out super-quick.

 

[Shrimper]

Whatever you do to it it will cloud the water such is the nature of sand - but it will settle in a couple of days and does no harm to the fish. My eheim cleared it out super-quick.

I have some Roman Gravel brand sand in my tank. It didn't really need rinsing and did not cloud my water at all. The only thing i don't like about it is that the colour isn't as black as when it was dry.

 

[boardy]

what was that like cleaining ? got any pics of it in your tank

I'ts pretty easy to clean as long as you keep the hoover nozel about an inch or 2 off the sand to stop it sucking up the sand. Here's a few pics -

Left hand side of the 108l main tank


The 60l fry tank I setup last night, cycling ready for fry in 2 weeks or less.


Both tanks sitting next to each other in the bedroom


Right hand side of the 108l main tank


I love the look of it now, I used to have Roman Gravel in there, and it just looked crap, so after talking to people on here I changed it and it's made such a difference. I wouldn't use playsand as it requires cleaning as it's kept outside before being bagged, the dried sand you can put it straight in.

Adam

 

[Azaezl]

I have playsand in all of my tanks, I've found that tesco playsand is alot better, it doesn't need as much cleaning and it didn't cloud my tank at all wheras recently I used argos playsand in a tank and it took ages to clean and left my tank very cloudy and took ages to settle.

 

[drewry]

i used B&Q play sand and it took ages to clean

 

[loachman]

Black 3M color quartz. Much cheaper than black "aquarium" sand and inert. Perfectly uniform size and shape. I get pretty good plant growth with it, despite no special plant-growing equipment other than some root tabs.

Issues are that it is only available in the US as far as I know, and requires alot of rinsing (it's a industrial pool product and has a fair amount of "dust" in it).

 

[crimsontsavo]

I used a 50 pound bag of el cheapo $3.00 play sand from lowes. It's got a nice subtle tone to it.