# Type of sand



## grd1616 (May 18, 2010)

I am wanting to change my tank substrate from gravel to sand and am wondering what the best type of sand is to use? I don't want a real fine sand like play box sand, I've heard that Tahitian sand is really good but don't know much about aquarium sands. And I also want something that ain't gonna make my tank look dirty. It's for a south/central cichlid tank, not African. Thanks


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## kinesis (Aug 20, 2009)

I like pool filter sand or silica sandblasting sand, very natural looking and cheap.


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## lmhollist (Aug 7, 2009)

I have a couple different mixes in my tanks. The vast majority of them I used pool filter sand with a couple scoops of the Tahitian Black Moon sand to give it a very subtle salt and pepper look. To be honest, I think it looks really good and tends to bring out the colors in my fish a lot better than just plain white does. In a few of my other tanks I have a mix of the Cichlid Eco-Complete (salt and pepper) with some extra crushed aragonite mixed in and probably some other sand too but I can't honestly remember anymore.

But seriously, pool filter all the way, it's cheap, it's clean looking, it stays settled in your tank and with just a little rinsing beforehand it hardly clouds the water when you add it to the tank. Plus a 50 lb bag goes a long way.

I didn't think of it until just now, but what size is your tank? I'm assuming it's larger since you said it's for centrals and those guys tend to be monsters, but maybe your housing some of the smaller species and it's a smaller tank? I dunno. If it's a 75 (or maybe even a 55) or larger, I think the cost savings on pool filter sand is worth it. But if it's a smaller tank then you're probably better off buying a smaller bag of the more expensive sand they sell at the pet store, because you really don't need all that sand unless you plan on getting more tanks in the future.


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## Andras (Jul 17, 2010)

lmhollist said:


> Plus a 50 lb bag goes a long way.


Couldn't be more true. I bought 100lbs to put into my 40 breeder and just one 50lb bag was enough for almost 3" of substrate  . It only costed me around 5 bucks a bag too.


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## lmhollist (Aug 7, 2009)

Andras said:


> Couldn't be more true. I bought 100lbs to put into my 40 breeder and just one 50lb bag was enough for almost 3" of substrate  . It only costed me around 5 bucks a bag too.


Wow that's a lot of sand!


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## Gdad (May 27, 2010)

Pool filter sand gets my vote. Very cheap, easy to rinse, looks great


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## niccomau (Oct 14, 2008)

I like Estes Marine Sand - it can be used in freshwater as well as marine. It comes in white, black, or blue. And the best part is no rinsing...and no dirty water if you don't rinse enough. I'd rather pay extra to skip the time consuming rinsing. Only downside is some sand floats, but with surface aggitation or using a your hand in the same manner, will get the floaters down. White shows waste more, but I still love it. The fish's colors pop on pure white. :thumb:


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## KiDD (Aug 20, 2010)

I got a real fine sand with crushed coral in it. But I have done my own thing the sand is under black Rock with patches showing through.


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## demonsoni (Feb 10, 2006)

Stay away from play sand/sand box sand. It has a high clay percentage.


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## dasani (Jun 15, 2009)

demonsoni said:


> Stay away from play sand/sand box sand. It has a high clay percentage.


i agree, I have play sand right now and it took me 45mins to clean 10lbs at a time. I have about 110-120lbs of sand


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## benny71 (Sep 30, 2010)

I went all over town looking for PFS and found 1 lonely 50 lb bag(not the best time of year to look for pool supplies  )...Will that be enough for a standard 55 gallon?


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## norden (Nov 18, 2010)

should be enough, i just did mine a minute ago in a 55 gl. how long does it take to settle?


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## xxbenjamminxx (Jan 22, 2011)

When I did mine I used "mason sand" from the local cement plant. They sell it by the ton so I paid around $3 for about 3 5 gal buckets full. Its just silica sand and I rinsed it for a little not knowing how clean it had to be. It did cloud up my tank at first but within about 24 hours or so most it had settled only leaving a slight cloud. I just put in the micron filter in my Magnum 350 and flipped it on for a few hours and it took care of it for me. If you cant do that I would just do several water changes until it cleans up.


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## Bkeen (Mar 13, 2009)

Pool filter sand!


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## Cromak (Dec 29, 2010)

I use medium coarse quikcrete sand from home depot $9 bucks for 100lbs.. Very clean, but dusty so id recommend empty the bags into a large container first to let the dusty blow out. You don't have to really rinse it but it couldn't hurt. Love the way it looks but it does fly around a bit when stirred up.

Here is how it looks..


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## Flippercon (Mar 5, 2011)

The pfs is the easiest to clean by far. Imho pfs all day long. I do have the the tahitian moon same which is very nice but at around a dollar a lb that pretty steep. Next time you clean sand use a pillow case , they work wonders for cleaning sand.


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## nmohara (Mar 31, 2011)

Looks I like the tahitian moon sand but price is pool sand


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## scran53 (Mar 12, 2013)

OK, it looks like Pool Filter Sand won. I'm also wanting to switch from gravel to sand. I've got a 50 gallon with Yellow Labs and Blue Acei. What should the depth of the sand be? I've noticed that most tanks here have just a small layer of sand. I am currently using pea gravel and it's got an under-gravel filter with power heads. I'm guessing most people don't use UG filters. Thanks for any help.


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## Steve C (Oct 9, 2011)

Sand depth is best around 1" to 1.5" at the most. Anything deeper and it will tend to create pockets of gases that can be harmful to the fish. UGF and sand don't really mix, the sand will clog the filter in a hurry. So if you go to sand you will need to swap out the UGF for a hang on back or a canister style.


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## scran53 (Mar 12, 2013)

Kind of figured that.


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## chiroken (Sep 25, 2007)

Flippercon said:


> The pfs is the easiest to clean by far. Imho pfs all day long. I do have the the tahitian moon same which is very nice but at around a dollar a lb that pretty steep. Next time you clean sand use a pillow case , they work wonders for cleaning sand.


What exactly do you do? Put in the sand and rinse it through the case so dust washes out? I'll be putting sand in the near future in 4'x18" and 8'x2' tanks....that's alot of sand!


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## Helosoldier66 (Feb 27, 2012)

I just changed to PFS this last week and just dumped the bag without rinsing and let my overflow handle anything that floated. After it cleared I changed my prefilter pad and washed it. No issues at all and all my Tangs. are fine.


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## pauld1946 (Mar 5, 2013)

grd1616 said:


> I am wanting to change my tank substrate from gravel to sand and am wondering what the best type of sand is to use? I don't want a real fine sand like play box sand, I've heard that Tahitian sand is really good but don't know much about aquarium sands. And I also want something that ain't gonna make my tank look dirty. It's for a south/central cichlid tank, not African. Thanks


I have sand my self if you want to use Sand Try Home Depoe Pool filter sand, it comes in 50 pond bags for $5.00 and its easy to clean, I put about halfe in a 5 gal.buket ran a garden hoes in the buket twice it came out clean. I hope this helps you pauld1946


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## iridextr (Feb 8, 2013)

I was too lazy to buy sand from when I got my most recent tank this winter, I ended up using the tube sand I put in the back of my truck. It's probably the same as all-purpose sand. My only complaint was how dusty it was for the first week. I just kept doing little 5g water changes with the vac and sucked up the dust that settled on the top layer, no more dust! It's dirt cheap and I think it's the most natural looking since the grain size isn't so uniform and the grains aren't all one color.


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## theoryguru (Oct 11, 2011)

I use PFS, it does take a while to clear after to place it in the tank. fyi - some contain a lot of silica which can promote diatom growth.
After reading some threads, I'm leaning toward 'paver sand' available at big box stores.. reduced clay content; then again I have some tubes of sand by shed already


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## yamadog (Oct 7, 2012)

I used Silica sand from HD. Good size and color imo, but pretty dirty. It did cloud the water pretty good, so I set up a simple powerhead filter consisting of the top half of a wter bottle filled with quilt batting from walmart stuck on the intake of my 1200 maxijet. Water was clear in less than an hour. I did have to change the quilt batting twice because it clogged up too fast and killed the waterflow....


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## Helosoldier66 (Feb 27, 2012)

Sand that has a fine particle size throughout the whole bag has a tendency to pack hard like concrete. I used fine sand one time and didn't like it. I just put together another 55 gallon today and added one bag of PFS. This time I rinsed it 3 times and the water wasn't even clouded after I put it in.


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