Fresh Water Sand for Salt Water Tank?

AADEGROOT · Sep 25, 2013

I know that there are no stupid questions only stupid people who ask those questions. I'm playing off my ignorance here and this may be a dumb question.

I am going with a shallow sand bed for my subtrate and with a new 125 gallon tank; that is a lot of money for sand. I know that the cheap route is not the way to go but here it is...

I live ND right next to the start of the Missouri River, can I go out onto a sand bar and get sand from a fresh water river to use as my shallow sand bed for my salt water tank?

Tahoe61 · Sep 25, 2013

You may want to consider going with a bare bottom tank until you save up for Aragonite. Is this fine sand, do you really want fine grain sand? Remember it can blow around the tank and take a long time to settle out, it can also be a haven for Cyanobacteria. Are you going to be able to guarantee that there are no contaminants and that you have processed and cleaned the sand to eliminate phosphates or toxins? You can always add sand down the line, it's a lot harder to remove substrate.

LOVETHISHOBBY · Sep 25, 2013

I agree with Tahoe61. Save up for sand specifically for marine aquariums. Who really knows what's in that sand and the contaminants that you could introduce into your system.

russo36 · Sep 25, 2013

If you decide to use it just make sure is pure sand... Only reason I say this is bc
Sometimes they dump sand to make sand beds in rivers etc that is mainly used
For construction and is mixed w other chemicals.... If its good sand put it on your oven for 10 to 15 minutes at 350
To kill off any germs or parasites... As for it blowing around....I have sugar fine sand in my tank
And doesn't blow around unless I put the pump almost on top of it.... I keep my pumps mid level and its fine.
Hope this helps.... Good luck

Eienna · Sep 25, 2013

Sand from outdoors may contain toxic metals, among other things.

If you want, you can use silica or quartz sand made for use in pool sand filters. It's usually cheap, running around $12 per 50lb bag. I got mine for my FW tank at Ace Hardware. Just make sure it's plain silica/quartz with no additives.

redfishbluefish · Sep 25, 2013

People think sand is sand. Actually there are two kinds of sand…..silica base and carbonate based. The silica based sands are what we use to make glass…..the carbonate sands are basically crushed corals….Ideally, for our tanks, we want carbonate based sands (Aragonite). The silica based sands could be problematic as far as dinoflagellates are concerned. I can tell you that the sand you are finding in Missouri is silica based (don’t find many corals growing in Missouri).

Don’t waste your time…..buy carbonate based sand.

AADEGROOT · Sep 26, 2013

Thanks for the advice, stay away from outdoor sand. Thank you for the education regarding local sand beds, chemicals, and the different types of sand. Hence why I asked, I'd rather come across as an idiot on the forum instead of having my environment suffer because I was to egotistical to ask for advice.

GHill762 · Sep 26, 2013

silica sand (the kind people use for fw) is okay to use, but you'll regret it, it's very ugly in a marine tank... I'd be more worried about river contaminants though..