Play Sand

I've read some of the older forums, but nothing is very recent on play sand use. Would this sand be alright? I can't find YardRite or Old Castle sand at my local homedepot or lowes. I would much rather pay $3.68 for 50 pounds and seed it with some of my SB from my current setup.

 

I would want to know exactly how it was sanitized. Sterilization can be done by boiling or baking and that would be fine. However, "sanitized" usually means it's been treated with antibacterial chemicals. OK for kid's sandboxes, very bad for aquariums.

 

Thats regular silica based play sand. Fine for a number of freshwater aquariums, but I would stay away from it if youre doing a saltwater system

 

Wont the diatom's just eat up the silicates from the sand and then die off?

 

I'm surprised that myth still persists... silica sand is NOT water-soluble, and therefore cannot leach silicates.

My concern is that the bag on that particular product states that it is "sanitized" which usually means that antibacterial chemicals were used. Otherwise it would be just fine.

 

Ok, so if I am reading this right then I can use just regular play sand that hasn't been "sanitized" unless stated how it has been "sanitized'?

 

Yes, absolutely. Regular play sand has been and still is being used in a lot of systems without any problems.

 

Awesome, I wish more people would just keep it short and simple lol. I've read a lot about play sand today, but nobody just flat out said regular play sand would work just fine. Everything I read said to look for certain things, which is why I made reference to one certain type of play sand.

Thank you for you input.

 

Silica sand will leach silica. Certainly the large particles won't, but the smaller pulverized particles do. Randy showed that in this article. It isn't an issue though, as once a tank is established, there are a lot of organisms that will use silica and it is depleted quickly. The bigger considerations are that it is sharp and may be rough on bottom dwellers and the color isn't as nice white as aragonite . although IME, white aragonite shows every spec of crud (sugar sand especially), so, that may not be that bad. Comes down to personal preference. I would rinse it well though.

 

Could you provide a link to that article Matt? I'd certainly like to see it. If he's referring to the dust cloud as opposed to dissolved solids, then yes, of course it needs to be rinsed thoroughly (that should go without saying).