Sand Suggestions for planted tank.

[jbop65]

Good Morning everyone, getting ready to move my new 150 gallon tank into the living room and been going over some final things as to what I want tank to look like.

This much is sure 12 discus, 5-7 small tank mates, a large center piece of driftwood or spiderwood, some rocks and about 8 sword plants in the rear of tank.

I wont have high output lighting so I don't want to go heavy on the plants in fear of loosing them.

I am keep the background light and using white sand for the bottom of the tank, since I will have some pigeon blood discus, here is where the problem is many suggested using Leslies or Pinch a penny pool filter sand which I like the thought, most said it's really cheap, well in my area its $32 a bag for only 25lb bag, still cheap? I want white so here is my question and need to know if it would work, I could go to Lowes or Home depot get the tan color sand at $12 a bag for 25lbs layer the tank with that, Then purchase white sand to put on top, I was told I needed 2 inchs high in front and 4" high in back because of the roots growing,

I dont want the sands to mix together plus everything I hear about white is its fine and gets sucked up during cleaning and water changes, Zeobrite is the brand the pool companies carry here, and maybe I could use caribsea as a top layer would this work?

[discuspaul]

The tan & white sands will definitely mix together and you may not like the resulting color, which won't be white.
I don't know what the Pinch a Penny PFS is, but $32. for a 25 lb. bag seems awfully expensive to me.
You should be able to get PFS from a reliable pool supply store anywhere in the U.S. or Canada for around $10.- $12. or so for a 50 lb. bag, perhaps even less in some places.
White is at times available, and if you get # 20 or # 30 grade density it is not very fine and should not easily get siphoned up during vacuuming.
For a discus tank, you'll likely want your sand layer to be much less deep than that. Mine is no more than 1/2" in front, and less than 3" at the rear, and I have no problem growing plants well at that level, and you minimize the risk of anaerobic gas pockets developing.
Best of luck to you.

[kareen]

HTH Pool Fliter Sand 50lb bag $15.00 ACE Hardwere has it go on there web

[Wahter]

The local Leslie's Pool Supply has 50 pound bags of Pool Filter Sand for under $10.00USD

[loltune]

If you want finer but still a lot grainier than beach/play sand you can purchase Quickrete Commerical Grade Sand from Home Depot or Lowes. Some states carried this sand in white but most I've seen is in Tan like PSF. They cost about $4-6 for 50 lbs.

[discuspaul]

Good quality # 20 grade dense silica PFS obtained from a pool supply store can come in several different colors/shades:
white, at least 2 different shades of tan/beige, light greyish, and light pinkish sands.