SAND SAND SAND

[mrairportjunke]

hey where do yall get sand for yalls tanks.  I want sand in some of mine but man i cant afford the mint it takes to buy it from the store.  do yall use play sand for like a kids sand box or can you use sand blasters sand?  or can i just go down to my local creek or river and dig some up for my tank??  course id have to wash the hell outta it but could i??

[eklikewhoa]

Re: SAND SAND SAND

I think the best ones for cheap is either sandblasting sand(need to clean a lot) and Pool Filter sand.

[Fire_chair]

Re: SAND SAND SAND

I use contractor/paving sand from Home Depot. 50lbs is around $5

[mrairportjunke]

Re: SAND SAND SAND

yeah.  if the sandblasting sand is new,  only thing you really cleanin out is the dust right?

[eklikewhoa]

Re: SAND SAND SAND

And lots of it.

[mrairportjunke]

Re: SAND SAND SAND

paving sand. ill have to get me some of that.  how do you siphon sand in a fresh tank. what you do about all the crap that it collects like your rocks?  my rocks wont suck down the siphon but sand would

[eklikewhoa]

Re: SAND SAND SAND

With sand in my tanks the poop builds up in certain spots....I just siphon right above it and out goes the poop... occasionally I stir the sand up with my hands to keep it from compacting.

[Zulaab]

Re: SAND SAND SAND

mrairportjunke - it depends on what I am going to have grow in my tank depending on what sand I use.

For South Americans I prefer to use kids play sand gotten from Home Depot for 3.47 a bag.
For Africans here is what I do.. It costs more but it gives me the higher hardness and pH I am looking for - I use pool filter sand (from Leslie's pool supply 50 lbs for $11.00 which I blend with eco-African cichlid sand which you can get for I think 20-25 at Mike's for a 25 lbs bag.  This is when you want to use a white sand mixture.  This is what I have my Leleupi and Brichardi's in.  They both prefer a lighter color substrate and this will bring out their colors more.

In about 3 weeks from now I am going to use a 90lbs bag of black blasting sand which I got from CichlidFan in my upcoming 75 tank which is going to hold Malawians..  I have been told that this with white holey rock looks awesome with Malawians.  I went to Fish Ranch where Charles has a tank in the back setup this way and I think it looks awesome.    Cannot wait to get it together. :)

Now how much sand in the tank.
Here is how I calculate it.  Use a aquarium calculator (ie volume).  Take the bottom dimension you have on your tank... say a 70gal Oceanic which is 36x18x25, but instead of the 25 inch front glass substitute ALWAYS 16inches.  So my calculations on that tank would be 36x18x16 this will show you a 45 gal tank.  Use 45 lbs of sand to put about a nice 1.5 in bottom in your tank.  (remember mileage may vary).
So you have a 215 Oceanic which measures  72x24x29 substitute 16 for 29.  You now have 120 gal tank.. Use about 120 lbs of sand.  This method has worked quite well for me in the past.

[eklikewhoa]

Re: SAND SAND SAND

There are substrate calculators on cichlid-forum.com and cyphos.com

cyphos.com calculators

[High-PH]

Re: SAND SAND SAND

It does seem to me that the Play Sand you get, like at Home Depot, is a lot finer stuff than play sand used to be. Maybe it's so you can wash it out of their eyes more easily if the kids have a sand fight out there, but the stuff I got last was so fine it almost floated and I ended up not using it for a tank.

PH

[Leprae]

Re: SAND SAND SAND

I've been using play sand from Toys R Us.  I don't remember the exact price, but it's something close to the $5 for 50 lbs quoted above.  It washes easily, and unlike High-PH, I've had no problems with the post-washed sand making a mess in my tank.

Catfish and scavengers are always excellent at helping to keep mulm from accumulating, but periodically siphoning with an airline tube just above the surface of the sand does a good job of picking up the excess detritus.

Occasionally mixing the sand with your hands is a good idea to keep it from compacting and to provide mixing to prevent anaerobic zones from forming.  This is difficult if not impractical in a planted tank (we can argue the use of play sand in a planted tank), but a well-developed network of roots can actually help prevent these zones from developing.

[imagirlgeek]

Re: SAND SAND SAND

I use masonry sand from Alamo Stone.  I can't remember exactly how much it costs, but I know it was under $10 for a 75lb. bag for sure.  I don't know how fine play sand is, but the masonry sand is a larger granule than the stuff you'd buy in a bag at the LFS.  But you do have to wash the crap out of it.  It's a good place to get rocks too.  They always have areas with a good variety of rocks that they mark down to anywhere between 5 cents and 9 cents a pound.

[wvgdiscus]

Re: SAND SAND SAND

If your going to use sand make sure to pick up some lava rock. Break it into small pieces put it with in the sand. It will help to keep the sand from compacting & it allows water to flow through the sand as well.

Oh yes boild the lava rock 1st.

[NDsuperduty]

Re: SAND SAND SAND

Personally I do like to use that kind of sand.  Too fine for my taste.  i know its more expensive, but I really like the eco sands

[mrairportjunke]

Re: SAND SAND SAND

hey zulaab, thanks for the info.  in my malawa mix tank, i have black gravel, black background, with texas holey rock.  i love the look.  

and to everyone else. thanks for the info.. I wanna put the sand in my malawa mix tank first, so the black blasting sand sounds great. it would be just ilke my gravel.  

the other tank i wanna put sand in is my 29 gallon with my rosy barbs, black skirt tetra, and kuhli loaches.  not sure what color id want in there.  what yall think??

my green spotted puffer tank has white gravel now but i got some used sand from a marine tank that stinks horribly.  so i tested a little.  i dried it out, washed it and it doesnt smell at all and is great.  so i gotta dry and wash the rest of the sand to switch it for the tank.  

my 75 south american tank has really fine small gravel in it.  its the normal color like youd see in the real world.  not colored.  i love the way it looks in that tank.  One day im gonna picture all my tanks and post them on my photobucket to show yall.