Black diamond sand too sharp?

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mpmistr

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May 21, 2012
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20-40 is what I picked up. The grains are not extremely large but they are jagged I would not trust it with a clawed frog which tends to swallow sand, I am pretty **** sure it is a death sentence with clawed frogs. I was disappointed. Your sand looks a lot more rounded than what I wound up with, oh well.
 

Anniegump

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I can recommend it. Even with my bottom dwellers. I love the look of it and they burrow around in it and they are doing fine.
 

platytudes

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I used 20-40 grade...seems very smooth to me! Take a look:

[video=youtube_share;RVoUltiQBBI]http://youtu.be/RVoUltiQBBI[/video]

When wet, it's more gray than black, which surprised me - but that's ok, I don't mind.
 

Lillyan

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I use it, none of my fish have issues. I have cories, otos, plecos, eel, shark, knife and they all don't mind.
 

mpmistr

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I understand, it may work for bottom dwelling fish but after going over the sand particles in the black diamond I picked up it looks very jagged and not suitable for african clawed frogs, which feed off the bottom and tend to ingest substrate. It's just not worth the risk to me, it looks like it would very easily get caught in their intestinal tract.

Better safe than sorry.
 

mpmistr

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Well, contact CaribSea, since they make almost all the black sand substrates that they sell at the LFS:
http://www.caribsea.com/contact.htm

Unless you want to go for a dirt substrate, like plain topsoil, which I'm sure would be safe, but messy.
I was considering ordering Estes Aqua Sand in Black http://store.seacorals.net/esaqsablaqsu3.html

I do like Carib Sea's other products so that is also a very good option. Their 'Moonlight' sand is white and very fine, quite possibly the finest grain sand I've ever seen.

My frogs really like it, though it stirs very easily. I obviously would prefer black but I think for the sake I know it's safe and very fine and soft I may just stick with Carib Sea Moonlight as I am currently building a 40g breeder for my frogs when they're adults.
 

Astronotus

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Jul 27, 2012
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I have used a version of black diamond for alomst 10 years with no problems at all.I have had alot of differeub fish in these tanks with no problems at all.
 

mpmistr

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I have used a version of black diamond for alomst 10 years with no problems at all.I have had alot of differeub fish in these tanks with no problems at all.
May work fine with fish but the jagged edges just don't work for a xenopus which tends to scoop a fair amount of substrate into their mouths during feeding. I am using carib sea moonlight (very very fine white sand 0.1 mm to .03mm) for my clawed frogs and I would only use a black sand as fine as carib sea's product but there just isn't one unfortunately.
 

Rbishop

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The OP's post seems to be concerning fish....
 
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