Sand

[bbrtmad]

Home Depot sand or play ground sand. i Figuered i would give this a try as my lfs doesnt carry and sand or S/W fish. Very bad idea. I even followed all the steps to rinse it like the diy forum suggested. Who ever the f***** idiot was that said home depot sand was ok is a F***** moron. I cleaned it tell the water ran clear like suggested. I stired the sand and let it run again and i will be damned if it didnt turn my tank water to mud.

I have some very Pissed off fish atm and i will not be following anything on this site again unless someone posts how and what that has more sence then a 3 year old or more then 1000 posts.

Sorry to flame but im sick of to many know it alls that run rampent on forum sites then add that they are god and this so works better then the real thing.
Me personaly i will be buying sand online as i dont need fish that are $50 plus to die becuase i wanted a cheap way out.

 

[lilsuper2335]

well you didnt clean it enough...i used sand that was from petsmart...i think petco has it too...mud water huh.....i had that happend once...i just cleaned it again and again and this is what i got

 

[crisper]

Thanks for the heads up I was thinking of adding sand from home depot to my 180g. Hope your fish are ok.

 

[bbrtmad]

fish seem ok.Im just pissed cuase they said clean it over and over until the water and sand is clean the add it using a small bowl. so i Did but it still made the water real murky fish are not happy we shall see what happens after a hour or so and my filters are not clearing it out at all so it seems

 

[bbrtmad]

your sand from petsmart wrong idea i used sand from home depot called play sand. The sand you got is probably intended for aquariums. Were as mine should be used for kids dont compair apples to oranges

 

[lilsuper2335]

well what i did with the tank i posted was i got coarse sand from a dried up creek bed in the desert. i just dumped it in the tank half full of water...big mistake...i drained the tank down a ways and then carried it downstairs and used a hose to stir up all the dirty stuff...when it would fill a little bit then i would dump and repeat...i did it about 20 times and now i have no dirty water...and my plants love it

 

[alleykat0498]

I just used playsand for the first time last night (quickrete) and after a few hours its still not completely clear. I only rinsed mine for about 10 minutes and it gets a little clearer every hour that goes by. Hope your fish are okay, mine have done just fine. Pic is with the sand less than 12 hours in the tank

 

[Bllib]

Even though I don't have more than 1000 posts let me just tell you right off that play ground sand is pretty dirty. Several post have been placed stating that very fact. Are you adding the sand in with the fish?? Not a great idea. It would be better to remove the fish add the sand and give it a chance to settle and then add your fish. I went with pool filter sand that had to be cleaned. Even then it took easily 24 hours for the water to become clear.
As far as your post. There are a lot of different opinions on this site but it is up to you to do your home work before trying anything on your tanks. Especially salt.

 

[LeahisAwesome]

I still want to try sand.

Kinda common sense tho ..
Its going to take a good minute for the sand to settle.

And even gravel for fish tanks is supposed to be cleaned first...
I wouldn't even dump that in a tank with fish in it...

Im with Bllib on this one.

Hope your fish are ok tho.

With my sad 88 posts

 

[billm90]

I used 3 bags of play sand in my 180g, I have no issues.
It looks awesome.

I rinsed the **** out of it. I let it run for 5 mins, stir it with the hose running, then dumped out the water. did this over and pver for like 25 mins. doing this also gets those tiny sand particles out of the water.

I also did 1/2 a bag in a 5 gallon bucket. putting a full bag in the bucket does not clean it as well and would take much more time.

This sand I found varies in how dirty it is. I just moved to san diego and the sand here was much cleaner then the stuff I picked up in the los angeles area. The LA area sand would right away make white foam when I was rinsing it. none the less, I had great results with the filthy sand in LA. You just have to clean it better.

I also want to add, the water was still a little cloudy after I added the sand. it has very fine particles in it. I could see them deposting on the corner over flow bottom grill. I have a 1200gph wet dry on it, as well as an rena fx3. they both ended up with some sand in them. just cleaned them out and was ready by morning.

I just did this less then 4 weeks ago. I can even go in and swish my sand around and I dont have any clouding. I had a power head fall into the sand. it blew it all up into the corner. no cloudy water.