Is it safe to use Silica sand/Pool Sand in all aquariums such as Malawi and Tanganyika?

That stuff works great. Just be careful when cleaning the glass it will score your tank very easily. I know from experience. dumb dumb

Thanx for the info Dave.

I have pool filter sand in all of my tanks with one exception (blasting sand). The blasting sand is too white so I am going to switch it out this week - just bought a bag of pool filter sand today!

At one time I had crushed coral in my tank but switched it over to pool filter sand. The fish loved the sand, before I knew it they were landscaping mountains left and right! It's so much easier to clean then gravel too IMO.

Thanks for the input Ladies Klausmiser

That's what I'm putting in my new tank as well, Gee!

It's a lot cheaper than LFS substrate too!

50 pound bags are $8.99!

Good luck!

WoW for once i am buying something cheaper than in the States.

I am paying $ 13.22 for 110 pounds Wooo hoo!!



Good Luck to you too my friend!

I use crushed coral for the PH buffering. How do you keep your PH high if you switch to pool filter sand?

You can put it in your filter. I put mine in pantyhose tied it off and stuffed it in!

Is pantyhose safe? The chemicals and scents part of it?

Pantyhose are safe. Here check out the article on Aqua Clears, check the pics. It gives you an idea of where to stuff it!

http://z3.invisionfree.com/CichlidHavenArt...php?showtopic=2

Pseudo- like you I used only crushed coral or dolomite for many, many years due to the ph buffering properties...but I did switch a few tanks over to sand. Know what? I found that the ph buffering theory seemed to be more of a myth. You probably wont notice much change at all in water chemistry.

The fish do seem to like it more. They all sift the sand and as stated earlier, they aquascape the heck out of your tank. I guess it gives them something to do when theyre bored..ha ha.

Sand utilizes a different technique when vacuuming as opposed to gravel. I liked the look of Eco-Complete (salt and pepper) sand substrate however at 20lb's for $35.99......I wasnt going to fill two 125 gallons. (with the two toned sand, you dont notice the fecal matter nearly as much....of course you could always vacuum every day instead..ha ha)


I used the white pool filter sand (50lb. for $7.99) and a 30 lb bag of black Moon Sand (24.99) I mixed a 5 gallon pail of white sand with only about 4 handfuls of the black moon sand to achieve this look. (this is an albino pleco fry tank)


Smaller tangs seem to really appreciate the sand...here are a few rather lousy pics but with natural sand color:


Even my discus would sift the substrate:

My fish love to dig and move sand around. The only downside that I have found is that some of them like to carry it up high in the tank and spit it out so that it sometimes gets into the filters. This causes me to clean those filters (HOBs) more often than I would like. My canister filters have no problems with the sand.

Here's a picture of some of the aquascaping done by the fish. This is the blasting sand that I am going to replace with the pool filter sand.



Sorry about the size - Photobucket has a new resizing feature and I couldn't get it to work. dumb dumb

I actually like the blasting sand Tres Bien!

WoW that's a big mountain Aura Giggly

I have also been having problems with photobucket. I size them all the same and get different sizes when i post my pix.

Theyre installing some mods and patches to their system right now

I personaly think thats the best way to aquascape your tanks, and its easy. Put in some substrate and rocks and let the fish set everything up. It always looks great no matter what they do.

X's 2 Tres Bien!

Make that 3! Tres Bien!

I use the #3 crushed coral, which is more coarse than sand but still pretty fine.