Sand substrate???

[Moon27021]

Hey guys and gals, I'm in the process of setting up my 75 gallon tank and was wondering if I could use play sand from lowes or Home Depot on top of some planting substrate. Is there something in that sand that might not be good???

[pastry]

I just used sand from the beach but have read some people on here have used the lowes play sand

[DJW]

Sean, here are some older threads where sand is discussed... it might give you some ideas:

http://forum.simplydiscus.com/showthread.php?120280-Quikcrete-play-sand

http://forum.simplydiscus.com/showthread.php?95433-What-kind-of-White-Sand-does-everyone-use

[rickztahone]

Yes, you can use pool filter sand from Lowes

[discuspaul]

As Ricardo said, get true pool filter sand, NOT ANY PLAY SANDS !

Play sands are generally very dusty, dirty, grimy & gritty, and take a tremendous amount of rinsing to get them reasonably clean, to avoid water clouding for lengthy periods. They're also usually very fine-grained ( not uniform by any means) and will get siphoned out when vacuuming, not to mention potentially getting into filters when disturbed into the water column, and clogging up filtration. Also, being fine-grained, they tend to compress & compact very easily and heavily, inviting the development of toxic anaerobic gas pockets.

Pool filter sand of # 20 or 30 grade density, on the other hand, has none of those negative qualities and can be counted on to provide a good-looking, useful, and easy to clean substrate.

[Moon27021]

Awesome... Thank you so much for the info!!

[Moon27021]

I figured there was previous posts on this subject, thank you for links!

[pastry]

Yep, I'd go with Rick and Paul's advice. Especially grain size.

[Boyd Luth]

+1 I would be hesitant to use Beach sand. Pool filter sand , rinse it thoroughly :-)
Yes, you can use pool filter sand from Lowes