Habitat - Indoor :: Sand FAQ

[Chrisbarnett]

I'd suggest a water change.

[FatherUnderground]

update: after about 5 days my water is finally crystal clear! ill post a pic tonight, ive got the flu so its hard to get motivated right now lol.

[Chrisbarnett]

Nice. For sure post pics.

[Chrisbarnett]

Took all the sand out of my tank very temporarily.. Had to move my tanks out of my room so I could get new carpet in.

I decided to just trash the sand in my tank though, it had a reoccuring Blue Green Algae colony brewing in it and it had turned a funky color after all this time.

So I went to Home Depot today and bought some different stuff.

I like it much better just from looking at it in HD.. even though my other sand was #30 as well, this stuff seems finer and more of a whitish than tan.

I'll be washing it tomorrow so we'll see if it's much dirtier than my last sand was.

And I'll be posting a tank update when I get it all set back up the way I like.

[VanishingReality]

Does anyone know if Walmart is currently carrying the play sand? Our current sand apparently has an algae colony so we need some new.

[Chrisbarnett]

Does anyone know if Walmart is currently carrying the play sand? Our current sand apparently has an algae colony so we need some new.

I'm sure they are, it doesn't seem like it would be a seasonal item.

My sand had a long running algae colony.. i trashed mine as well.

[VanishingReality]

We couldn't find the coloured sand at Walmart so we ended up going to Home Dept. The play sand they had was really easy to rinse and was only three bucks for 50lbs.

[Chrisbarnett]

Yeah i looked at the home depot play sand but didn't care for it because it seemed to have a coarse grain. Is it coarse?

[VanishingReality]

It feels really soft, a lot easier to work with then you would think. It has the same texture and size of reptile sand. Crush likes it a lot more then his old stuff. He has been moving it all to one side ever since he was placed back in his tank.

[Chrisbarnett]

Haha. Nice. Yeah that must be some different stuff since I assume you live in a different state... Different Home Depot's stock different playsand because this stuff was definitely coarse.


Glad your turtle is diggin on it though. Success.

[VanishingReality]

When my camera is found I will take pictures of it and the bag since we have some left. There was another play sand next to it was the coarse but this stuff is defiantly fine.

His rocks were getting pretty nasty so they got thrown out and we just haven't gotten him some new ones. He slept in the whole he created and seems to love it, odd little guy. Haha.

[Chrisbarnett]

Hahaha.

Yes, please do take some pictures. I've been thinking about adding something like this to the first page. Like have pics of the bags of sand, and say whether they are fine, medium, or coarse in our experience. The bags would be the kind available at the hardware stores..

Good idea?

[elwray]

I just added 100 lbs of "Arena" play sand to my 75 gallon tank. Got it at Lowes, about 3 bucks a bag (50lb). That made about 4-5 inches all around, which is about 2 inches over the lower wood trim. Looks nice, but it was a pain sifting all the gravel pieces, and wood chips out of it. It was fairly dirty.

Once I got all that junk out and washed it, I'd say it's a fine-medium sand. I have a bag leftover, I can take a picture of it later... but I'd say you should look for a cleaner and more well-sorted brand.

[Chrisbarnett]

Please do post a pic, Could always put it in a "Not recommended" section.

[elwray]

Alrighty, well this is the stuff I used:



It's not like I found screws and shards of glass and scrap metal in it... it's fine now that I got all the gravel and wood and dirt out. I just figure there's got to be brands out there that have a stricter pre screening process. Either way, it was under 4 bucks / 50 lbs so even with the hassle it's still worth it over pet store sand.