Freshwater Sand

[Artemis JT]

Yup, you can do sand. The downside is- It's kinda hard to clean, and if too much sand goes in your filters, they break. I've crashed three filters this way, so you've gotta be careful. When gravel vacuuming sand, just skim over to pick up all the debris.

I don't see the need for a pH buffer, most people really don't have terribly soft water, but... What cichlids do you plan on keeping?

 

[ninjaish]

i use play sand... like the kind you played in as a child. you can get it from home depot. fairly cheap. but works great! they come in 50 lb bags.

 

[nano cichlids]

i use play sand... like the kind you played in as a child. you can get it from home depot. fairly cheap. but works great! they come in 50 lb bags.

but takes hours on top of hours to clean pool sand you just have to rinse it out 2 times and your good

 

[Commodore 64]

but takes hours on top of hours to clean pool sand you just have to rinse it out 2 times and your good

It does take some time. I'm not sure what you mean by "hours on top of hours" though. Do you mean like 8 hours? Or 2 hours. I could see it taking 2 hours, for sure, if you were washing 150lbs of sand.

That said, you can clean up 50lbs of play sand in less than an hour. Play sand cleans up fairly quickly if you do it 10lbs at a time in a 5 gallon bucket with a hose. Just keep filling and swirling, and decanting. I've got 2 girls under 5, so they had a blast helping. It's a one time thing that you do as you set up a tank, so even if it did take a couple hours...seems to me that it's part of the hobby.

FWIW, I like to mix play sand 50/50 with general purpose sand which gives some larger grains and darker color without being dominantly coarser, like pool filter sand. I feel that this is more suitable for substrate sifters like kuhli loaches, cory cats, etc. The general purpose sand does have a lot more fines in it than play sand, so it does take a bit more effort to wash.