Play sand bottom

[divebud]

I'm in the process of removing all my course crushed coral bottom cover from my 65 gal tank. It has a lot of shell and I really don't like the look. I want to go for a sand bottom. Someone told me to go to Home Depot and but play sand. It's sterrile and cheap. It's kind of brownish in color for my taste. I really wanted something white, but thinking about it it's just gonna get stuff growing on it anyway.

My question is this. Does the white sand (really fine crushed coral) stay white. Any thoughts on the play sand ?

The course crushed coral held so much sediment the tank has looked like pee soup for hours. I think the fish are still in there. I'm hoping that the sand bottom will not trap as much.

Mike

 

[Angelscrx]

How much flow do you have in your tank? This will determine if you can have fine sand in your tank. If you have way too much flow you will have sand storms. One thing you want to make sure is that the sand you are buying is not treated with anything you don't want leaching into your tank (ex: Phosphates). I always buy reef sand so I don't know too much about the play sand. You can always buy bags of non-live reef sand and find someone who has a live Deep Sand Bed (DSB) and get a scoop from them to seed your tank. Hope that helps some.

 

[MikeS]

The Home Depot sand being refered to is a very specific brand and type of sand. It's called Southdown Tropical Play Sand. Basically, it is white oolitic aragonite sand, which is probably the most common type of sand used for marine sandbeds. It is not, however, available at all Home Depots, it seems to be only a regionally available item. The "brown" play sand you saw was likely a silica sand, like Quikcrete Play Sand.

MikeS

 

[lizardarm]

if you look through the photo gallery section at peoples reefs that have a sandbed, and have been set up for a while (not a brand new reef or aquarium); you'll see that most of them don't have what you'd call "white" sand. it tends to get algae of one type or another. you mix it up to make the top layer white again, then it gets algae. pretty soon it's all green and brown and striated. the only surefire way to keep it looking pretty clean is to replace some of it periodically.
i've been reading posts on these sites for a couple of years about people using, and having no problem with southdown sand.