Pool filter sand.

[Soggy]

I've seen a lot of people asking the sand question. Play sand? Pool filter sand? misc other sand? and I thought that in illustration was in order.

This is pool filter sand being pored into my aquarium after a 5 minuet rinse. I repeat that I did have to rinse the sand as it was dusty. You will notice that it didn't turn into a cloud and hang in the water like play sand. Heck I didn't even turn off my power heads for this, it just sinks that fast.

I wish I had a video of me poring play sand into a tank but I don't, and I wasn't about to poor play sand into my tank just for the video.

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[muffywrx]

Nice, I'm thinking about doing sand in my planned large tank.

 

[shua71]

Pool filter sand costs more but the amount of water you spend rinsing out playsand will even it out. (Learned this the hard way )

 

[Kanta]

Is pfs like white silica sand?

 

[Soggy]

The only thing I don't like about the pool filter sand so far is that it is all the uniform in size and doesn't look natural. I might add a bit of gravel to it for variety.

 

[buddha1200]

The only thing I don't like about the pool filter sand so far is that it is all the uniform in size and doesn't look natural. I might add a bit of gravel to it for variety.

actually i thought the same thing until recently i bought pfs for one of my 125's and it was not uniform in size,went back and boufght four more bags just to have it on hand,the first coople of bags i bought about two years back was very uniform in size. The person at leslies pool says its comes in like that some times,depends on if it is the first batch of a production run or the end of a production run(what ever that means)

 

[lipadj46]

I like the look of play sand with the small sand grains and lager chunks of white quartz. The price is nice too. PFS is much easier to rinse though and is larger in size and more uniform in my experience.

 

[erk419]

Wow that's a lot different then my playsand. What do you have on the bottom of the tank under the sand?

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[Aquanero]

I have PFS in all my tanks, some are mixed TMS and in a couple I have some natural colored gravel for contrast. $9.99 for 50lbs and is heavy enough so it doesn't get sturred up and sucked into the filter. The TMS is great mixed with PFS but alone it's so light I could never vacume without sucking it up the tube. IME playsand is too messy/dirty.

 

[fhawk362]

I prefer the look of play sand, although it took about 4 times longer to rinse and about 3 days to settle, cost wise as stated before it evens out cause when you rinse play sand you lose more, play sand kicks up more than pool filter sand but still is pretty good once settled, you can go either way, if its your first time I recommend pool filter sand due to its ease but I prefer the look of play sand.