Salt water tank can you use washed play sand as substrate?

Question

will be adding live sand later

Answer 1

The silicate from play sand will have no affect on any part of the water-- it is entirely insoluble.  The only problems will be that it won't buffer the pH upwards, though between the live rock (hopefully) and marine salt, this shouldn't be a problem.  Really, if you're gonna get live sand eventually, it would be better to just wait, as this and the live rock will greatly speed up the nitrogen cycle.

Answer 2

Soop hit it right on the spot again. You should just wait if you plan on getting live sand later on, due to the fact that what he just said is totally correct. Now I have a saltwater aquarium, and I've been into saltwater aquariums for the past 7+ years, I've been in the aquarium hobby for over 17 years, and through my experiences, I find that Soops answers are very very accurate.

If you are afraid of any bacteria in the play sand, why don't you just wait until you buy live sand. Besides, you should consider boiling the play sand if you want to take the chance, so that way, the boiling water will kill off all the potentially harmful bacteria to the fish. But it's just going to be a waste of time if you plan on buying live sand anyways.

So please, be patient, besides, having a saltwater tank takes a lot of time and patience to having a successful aquarium. You don't need to rush into things, that is the biggest mistakes that I've made when I first started and it costed me dearly. So from my experience, I am sharing with you, you should conduct multiple research and find the many different methods of starting up a saltwater tank, so that way you'll have the knowledge of setting up and maintaining it. You will also have to know about all the equipment that is necessary, how it functions, and most of all, you will need to know the diseases that marine fish may carry, especially the most deadly ones.

Soop has helped me figure out what went wrong with my friend's tank. My friend had a rare strain of marine ich that can kill fishes between 24-48 hours. We know how to treat these diseases, however, that rare strain got immune to all the answers that I've had, so Soop did his research and found the rare strain and he gave me the solution. So my advice to you is don't rush into putting something in your tank that you're going to get rid of anyways.............. Be patient and conduct research.

I hope that this helps.............. Good luck..................

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ufG2hl4Qn... This is my tank........

Answer 3

no no no no no no no god no no no. if you spend the money up front you will be happier with the result in the end. since sand is more expensive look for crushed coral, its cheaper and it looks just as cool and is specific to a saltwater aquarium

Answer 4

i wouldnt  advise it. play sand has a lot of silicates that affect the proper buffering of a new saltwater tank.they may also contain some trace heavy metals.but if you have a long time to cycle before you add fish or corals,it might work.

i have a 10 gallon nano FOWLR saltwater tank ironically with play sand!! but that tank was a brackish tank for 6 months before i turned it into marine .no problems with it yet!!

do it only if you can cycle for a good 2 months!!