i used sand... man im screwed.

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A coconut can fall from a tree, hit somebody in the head, and kill that person. A coconut is not toxic.

I don't personally know what the industrial people do after they dig up sand and before they put it in bags....sterilize them?
 
Your avatar picture makes me jealous Peter. Quit flaunting those Atabapo's all over the place or I'm going to have to buy some:D!!
 
Your adding words to my statements............3m quartz sand is sterile and contains silica.................silica in high doses is toxic to fish don't believe me???..............fill your fish tank with granite and find out for yourself. Non-sterile sand has the possibily of containing bacteria so if you use wild sand your at greater risk of having harmful bateria etc. invade your tank. That is ALL I said.

I made no statements regarding sand as being harmful to fish.......just that silica is.

The ditto on the "WHY" was regarding the use of non sterile products in a fish tank because the risk may or may not out weigh the reward. So WHY risk it.
 
This is the last I'm commenting on this, if you don't want to believe anything about silica that's fine. But I don't think you understand the chemistry of it at all!

First thing, what exactly makes 3m quartz stertile? Half the time the bags are setting out side and have soaked up water.

2nd thing. As I stated before the 3m quartz sands such as colorquartz are crush quartz which is silica. These sands are used by millions of people in aquariums and from your picture it looks like you have it in your tank as well. How exactly is the large amount (many time 100lbs of it in one aquarium or more) of silica not deadly to all of our fish if silica is so toxic? I'll say it one more time, crushed quartz sand is silica. It is rediculous for you to claim that you can put a silica substrate and your fish will be fine but if you put in granite rocks your fish will not be fine and they will die. Silica is not a reactive compound. Overall it is very inert. It is not readily absorbed by freshwater. The glass walls of your aquarium have silica, the sealent has silica, your sand is silica, and yet placing granite in the tank will kill the fish? Silica is more easily absorbed in saltwater, but it is still very non reactive even then.

I don't mean to bicker or argue over this, but your claims have no backing chemistry wise or from decades of aquarium keeping.
 
Retuks;2969524; said:
as for the first thing you said... well lets look at sand in hawaii for a second...

pesticides: ...no
fungus: on the crystal clear white sand beaches of hawaii... maybe toe fungus from all the tourists sticking their toes in it.
harmful bacteria: remember, we got millions of tourists to be liable for...
parasites: if any propagated on DRY land where i got the sand from, i doubt its amphibious...
heavy metals: excessive??? haha
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I don't really want to get into the argument, but as for your beaches being clean... Bacteria are everywhere and just because tourists don't get sick, doesn't mean that there is bacteria present that will infect other animals. Bacteria don't all infect every single living species. Some bacteria only infect humans, some only infect monkeys, some only fish, etc. So to say that you have all the millions of tourists to be liable for, doesn't mean that there is not bacteria present that could harm your fish. That said, I do use rocks and such from the environment. However, I really sterilize them BEFORE they get put in my tanks.
 
Silica is harmful as microscopic respirable particles, especially when they are positively charged. I doubt the silica in beach sand would be harmful.

I absolutely agree with the notion that potential sources of harmful bacteria and fungi should be avoided at all cost. I bake all the sand and rocks, and autoclave the driftwood before putting them in my tanks.
 
"I bake all the sand and rocks, and autoclave the driftwood before putting them in my tanks. "


WOW! Now that's what I call an ounce of prevention. Way to go!

Back to the question, Water changes will do the trick. I have some sand from Staten Island in one of my tanks and the fish are alive, I did rinse the hel out of it though. If fish can servive Staten Island sand I think they can servive sand from Hawaii, no problem.
 
jgentry;2958216; said:
Silica is nothing more then glass. Almost all commercail sand is silica based. Saying that silica sand is toxic is rediculous.

I think it's funny that we covet wild fish like they are extra special but when it comes to putting other things from the wild into our tanks it's a big no no.
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A HUGE AGREEMENT TO THIS POST

:headbang2
 
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