From gravel to sand (fresh water)

[Naos1984]

Or black diamond sand...

To clean any sand, put it in a bucket and run water overit for a few minutes to an hour depending on the dirt. Stir from time to time so that the dust from the lower portions rise up. Use a hand shovel to do this as it can be rough and hurt your fingers.

 

[duanes]

Looks like you have enough barriers to keep it out of the pump.
And after a while, unless you have MTsnails to constantly work it, play sand compacts into something resembling concrete, so you may not have trouble with it ruining the impellers.

 

[wednesday13]

Not a fan of play sand...the cichlid "malawi" sand is alot better at staying on the ground and setteling when fish stir it up, still gets in pumps tho. Had a bad experience with play sand years ago, it takes forever to settle when stirred up and ended up being a cloudy mess.....moonlight sand is also too fine and i would stay away from that also.

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[fishman61]

I use silca sand, which is a very fine white clean sand, minimal rinsing required. I got it at a place that sells swimming pools. It's cheap also, I paid $5 for a 75 lb bag, this is what I use in both my tanks, 125g & 150g. I put 150lbs in each tank