Sand for my sump/fuge

[gatorracer]

Ok so my sump went of with out a hitch but I want to start stocking my fuge area. I had a HOB fuge before so I was planning on just buying some regular sand and seeding it with my fuge sand. So my question is can you just buy some fine sand from a Home improvement store and use it? Does it have to be cleaned by some method? I plan on just buying some sand that my bodyshop uses for sand blasting. It is very fine and very cheap.

I look forward to your advice......

 

[Anonymous]

Get white tropical play sand. Several home improvement stores carry it up here in tropical New York :lol:

Sandbox sand.

 

[gatorracer]

It is too cold up here for anyone to stock sand box sand. How about base/paving tile sand? I looked at it and it looked alot like sandbox sand. What I am worried about is what might be done to the sand. I assume sand box sand is safe because obviously kids are gonna play in it. But I wonder if there is some step skipped in base sand because your are covering it up anyway.

 

[gatorracer]

Not trying to be a pain but just dont want to do anything stupid. Anyone got and idea if the base/tile sand is ok?

 

[ChrisRD]

It would probably be fine (many people have used various types of sand with success), although you might want to rinse it well. I think some folks have made the argument in the past that the nice rounded oolitic particles in aragonite reef sands might be more microcritter friendly than the sharper edged particles associated with some other sands. I've never seen anything to prove or disprove that so I'm not sure if it's a valid concern...

How big is the fuge? If it's not going to be all that big, why not just buy some aragonite sand from your LFS?

 

[crsswift70]

i dont know that the edges would be an issue. The sand blasting sand ive been around is spherical. not sure how they get it that way though!