Another Question About Sand Substrate
- Thread starter knashash
- Start date
You would have to bake it to kill any creatures. You run a big risk, especially being near a city that it could be contaminated with pollutants, road salt, mercury, etc.
Your beach sandcan carry all sorts of crap, salt ect, anything, there isnt REALLY a speacial type of aquarium sand, just silica, that says aquarium on it 
I just bought 50lbs of play sand at Home Depot for ~4.99CDN, and it's great. I'm using it in my 10g. It was clean right out of the bag, and I didn't have to worry about contaminants, boiling or baking it. I'd recommend getting something like play sand over using beach sand, because as Majorfish and kissofthegorami said, you never know what's in it.
I agree with the above posters. For the price, it's way better to get the play sand at your local hardware store. I'm getting the 50 pound bag for $5 at the local Home Depot or Revy's for my next set-up, and $5 is worth the peace of mind versus getting sand from the beach which may be contaminated.
I use natural sand in my tanks. You can't get this color or texture in the store so I bought it off a guy that collects it somewhere. Took a LOT of cleaning but it was worth it! Once I add more plants my tank will really have an Amazon look!
Play sand is tiny and compacts easily. A cheap better source is pool filter sand. Its a slightly larger grain and compacts less. Harlock uses this sand with great success aparently.
I've got ~170lbs of pool filter sand in use currently with great success (with another 30lbs in my buddy's tank). I wasn't too impressed with the play sand.
I give it 2 thumbs up.
.
I give it 2 thumbs up.
.