Beach sand

[SaltAddict89]

Can you go to the beach and get beach sand for substrate in your aquarium?

 

[tyler1503]

Sure can :) Everyone will be like "no, it's silica sand. You want aragonite. Silica based sand will give you algae". But the people who say that have probably never used beach sand and are just recycling info they read elsewhere.
I use it exclusively and have never had an issue that I can blame on the sand.
You just have to wash it really well. Wash it once, wash it again, wash it once more. Then, wash it again. Now that you think it's really clean, one more wash is necessary! I'm not exaggerating either. You really need to wash it that much!

 

[kgstei]

I would be concerned with pollutants in the sand.

 

[Reefing Madness]

Rinse the sand really well before using it.

 

[betelgeuse]

Im pretty sure it is illegal to remove sand from the beach the way you are talking about.

 

[firstlight10]

After rinsing the sand be sure to let it dry out, drying will kill anything the freshwater won't.

 

[Mr. Microscope]

I wouldn't put any sand from a Groton beach in my tank. Maybe something further south like FL.
(I almost moved to Groton recently, Pfizer couldn't offer me the right package.)

 

[DaveMorris]

I don't know about the Northeast, but here in Southern California it is illegal to collect anything from the beach, including the beach itself.

 

[MJP]

It is not illegal in CT to take sand from the beach !!! Do it man I'm just sad you thought of it before I did . Lol

 

[hawkinsrgk]

If you end up doing it let us know how it turns out. I thought about doing this myself but backed out

 

[SaltAddict89]

I will once i get some base rock to restart my tank

 

[AlexStinson]

It completely depends on where the sand comes from. In many places it would be dirty, polluted or too high in certain minerals. You want sand from a beach with carbonate sand, this is the sand that is usually bright white to off white in color, typically tropical. Silica sand is typically not pure silica, in fact you can often tell very nearly the beach sand came from just from analyzing it - this speaks to the inherent risk of just picking up random sand. My sand is know is safe as it came directly from the beach and was almost entirely aragonite based.