Pool filter sand

Does anyone use pool filter sand in their tanks? I have it in almost every one of my tanks and I'm removing blasting sand from one tank and wanted to replace it with the pool filter sand, but both of the places that I bought from before have gone out of business.

I'd like to find another source if anyone knows of one.

This is the brand I've been using, but any brand available would be fine.
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What it looks like in the tank.
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I like the tan color of it better than the whiter sand and I like the pool filter sand because it's so much cleaner out of the bag than play sand and the other sands that I've tried from Home Depot, etc. It's also a fairly large grain which makes it easy to vacuum without sucking it up during water changes.

wow... I really like it! Never seen it around at any place near me.... My two tanks that have sand have either expensive pet store african black and white stuff.... (which I love, except the price).... and home depot sylicon (sp) sand (the light, white one)

I really like your filter sand...whats the price on a big bag like that?

I've always wanted to try pool sand but I just don't like the color. But the color on this sand really looks good

Oh and betty you take really good pics

Thanks, sidekicking.

Sandnuka, that's a 50 lb bag and I paid $12 at one place and $14 at the other. Both places were pool/spa supply stores.

i use the silica i think it look great i pay about $8 for not quite as defined as yours but i still like the look and love the price 100#[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

Icer, you can't beat that price and I do like the look of that sand. I still have some, I think from Lowe's or Home Depot, but I like the larger grain size of the pool filter sand. Is that pretty easy for you to clean poop off of?

Here's another picture of the pool filter sand under brighter light.
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Ugh, I used play sand from home depot to start my 90 (when it was going to be a reef...) WORST MISTAKE EVER. The sand wouldn't settle and it left this gunky gooey residue along the tank. DISGUSTING. I had to sit there and freaking scrub it.

Good to hear pool filter sand works better. I've read about it quite a lot, when I go to set up a new tank I'll definitely go that route.

sorry my lighting in that tank sucks and i have a h*ll of a time to uploading picts theses days, it takes some patients with the gravel vac you gotta hold it about 1" above the sand and it comes up easily but i have some high turnover rates in my tanks so most of the pooo is flicked up by the fish and sucked into the filters but there are some dead spots it collects and yes i get it from home depot and no need to rinse it its 99% clean out of the bag.. spryal has 200# in his tank and all we did was dump it in and fill the tank....
there are a few pool place out this way but i have never stooped to check prices or stock also the wet spot sell a large grain sand for about .50c a pound don't have picts my buddy's got it in his tank and love it... there also is a place out here that sell what they call oatmeal sand (really rocks) but small grain i like it to you can actual gravel vac it very easily i think i was like .43cents a # last time i got some (i dont have a good pict u can see it in the bottom left corner though)[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

Nice looking fish in that picture. Is that the same fish as your avatar?

yessim it is that would be my fulu

Honestly I didnt know much about them until after I met up with icer711.... christmas fulu is one of my fav cichlids now... thanks tj!

What other fish do you keep with him icer?

i have him with 3 other fulu's and just a couple odd balls that i just havent moved yet there about about 7 fish in the tank they seem to all get along but its his tank

Wish I had the tank space to keep some Vics. They sure have beautiful colors on the males!
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I went out to a pool/spa supply store in Puyallup today and found that same brand of pool filter sand. I'm happy now.

i know i have fell in love with them starting slowly switching over from Malawi to them ...
nice to hear you found some i need to check these around here one day like the color of yours, heck maybe ill just mix them best of both worlds

oh and sorry i think i kinda jacked your thread didn't mean to

I don't mind the jacking -- I started it by asking about the fish anyway.

And about mixing the sands, I have done that with that white "Home Depot" sand and this pool filter sand to lighten the color up a little in one of my tanks. It looks good that way too.

wont the light home depot sand just work its way to the top and the thicker sand fall the to bottom?? so then you end up with like a layering thing?

really now im going to have to go hunt some down im not a super fan of the white but for the price its great so now im going to try it out thanks

I don't have any layering with mine. I don't have a very thick sand bed and I only mixed a little of the white in. Also I keep it mixed up with weekly water changes and vacuuming, so I don't know how it would look over time if it were undisturbed.

This is from the mixed sand tank. There's not a whole lot of difference; it just lightened the color up a bit. It's hard to tell with pictures.
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The 50 lb bag that I bought today was $13.99.

Here's a picture of the two sands side by side. Shows color and grain size differences.

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holey cow nice im gonna have to try it
i sprinkle some of my oatmeal sand in just to give it a different look i would shoot you a pict but i cant upload jack out here these days (its i think larger grains than that but they have some whites mixed in with black specials i think i kinda a tropical style sand but i get it from a landscaper..... on a different note great place to get slate in larger sizes for cheep to or larger stones

Yeah, the oatmeal sand in your picture looks like a much larger grain. The pool filter sand is still pretty small, but it's just heavy enough to make it easier to vacuum without sucking it all up.

If you do decide to try some, make sure to rinse it several times. It's not nearly as dirty as the play sand that I've tried, but it is not clean enough to put straight into the tank!

ok ill keep that in mind when i try it...
is it worse than cleaning the Tahitian black moon sand? i know from personal experience that stuff sucks to clean (20+ rises even in small amounts)

I like to use Tahitian black moon sand and I find it to be super clean
I don't rinse it I just throw it in the tank and fill it up with water lol

sidekicking wrote:I like to use Tahitian black moon sand and I find it to be super clean
I don't rinse it I just throw it in the tank and fill it up with water lol

lol idk where the h$#@ you buy your Moon sand.. All the stuff ive gotten has always had really bad small dusty sand all in it..

The african black sand I got was really nasty too... i rinsed it really well.... still clouded up... but came with this weird magnet water clearing chemical... and normally I dont dump things in my tank water, but there was no fish in it, and it needed to cycle anyway so i dumped it in.... worked awesomely... water was crystal within an hour... cool stuff, came with the sand.

sandnuka wrote:The african black sand I got was really nasty too... i rinsed it really well.... still clouded up... but came with this weird magnet water clearing chemical... and normally I dont dump things in my tank water, but there was no fish in it, and it needed to cycle anyway so i dumped it in.... worked awesomely... water was crystal within an hour... cool stuff, came with the sand.

yea mine came with that same thing... All it does is makes the fine particals sink to the bottom.. Thats great tank clears up but as soon as something stirs up the surface.. rearanging or clearing out plants or fish digging and it will cloud up again... Better off rinsing it 100 times and get the fine particulate sand out of you good sand..

Doza wrote:

sidekicking wrote:I like to use Tahitian black moon sand and I find it to be super clean
I don't rinse it I just throw it in the tank and fill it up with water lol

lol idk where the h$#@ you buy your Moon sand.. All the stuff ive gotten has always had really bad small dusty sand all in it..

I buy my sand from a place for pets
I'm serious is super clean lol

My TMS was filthy and I rinsed it for what seemed like forever before I put it in the tank.

Although the PFS is dirty, it wasn't that dirty. Rinsed in small amounts, it shouldn't take too long.

well really its all in the way you fill up your tank.... if you do it super slow, I never have a problem..... I even use soil as a substrate... cant really pre-rinse that.... also use flourite in one of my tanks, and It was like mud, didnt rinse it either, wanted all the good mud! So anything will be fine, as long as you fill the tank slow, and dont mess with stuff after its filled to stir it up again.

I agree with the slow filling! But I do get mine stirred up with vacuuming each week and...

My fish would never cooperate with leaving it alone and not getting it stirred up! This is their decorating, not mine. They kept putting that hill front and center starting right after I had leveled it back down. (This was blasting sand.)

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Betty wrote:
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Looks like you got yourself a beautiful dominate male fuelleborni there....

Thanks Doza! I did have a few fuelleborni at the time, but in a different tank. The fish in that picture was a poor quality or possible hybrid greshakei. He looks a little weird because of the angle the picture was taken from.

If anyone is interested in getting pool filter sand, I stumbled upon the same brand at McClendon's Hardware today, while looking for something unrelated. It was only $9.99.

sweet thanks ill try and remember to look next time im over that way or if im lucky enough ace out here will have it where in the store did you find it so we will kinda know where to look grrrr still gonna have to rinse it [You must be registered and logged in to see this image.] ... oh well as long as it mixes well with the silica

Betty wrote:The fish in that picture was a poor quality or possible hybrid greshakei

Really...In the angle it looks like it has the fleshy hump. and it has all the coloration and the markings of one.

I just looked up a pic of the grehakei and it looks just like the picture of your guy.. i can see why it looked like it had the hump in your picture.. the pic i looked up it shed them with almost a slightly pointed mouth..

why did youu think yours was a hybrid..

wow.... my africans dont mess with the sand that much.... my old midas used to do that with the gravel though.... lol, it made me soooo made, especially after just leveling it... one day later, all in front of the glass again.

Now I dont put much sand in there, thats probably why they dont dig as much

lol sand i don't even have that much in my 125 with eggcrate under it and my pieces of coral are being rearranged and disappearing apparently they don't like some so there being buried lol


betty glad to see im not the only that has fish trying to make sand castles [You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

icer711 wrote: where in the store did you find it so we will kinda know where to look grrrr still gonna have to rinse it [You must be registered and logged in to see this image.] ... oh well as long as it mixes well with the silica

I found it in the outdoor gardening section, near the pond and pool supplies. I'm pretty sure that it is silica sand as well, just different color and size. You might like it unmixed too. I prefer it just like it is with no mixing. The color of it appears differently depending on the lighting of your tank. Here's another picture where it looks lighter, but it isn't mixed with anything.
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Doza wrote:

Betty wrote:The fish in that picture was a poor quality or possible hybrid greshakei

Really...In the angle it looks like it has the fleshy hump. and it has all the coloration and the markings of one.

I just looked up a pic of the grehakei and it looks just like the picture of your guy.. i can see why it looked like it had the hump in your picture.. the pic i looked up it shed them with almost a slightly pointed mouth..

why did youu think yours was a hybrid..

Because of the dark vertical bars on the body. Good quality greshakei don't normally show those bars. It was one of the first cichlids I bought and I posted it for ID several years ago since it didn't really look like the fish it was labeled as. They agreed it wasn't a good quality greshakei or that it might be hybrid.

none the less very preatty fish.. i love the vertical bars on fish.. my male has the same coloration and gets a bright whiteish blue when courting females.. its awsome.