good sand?

[Nabob89]

I need some sand for my tank.....it is a 55 gallon....will be a reef....i'm planning on a shallow sand bed (1-2"), but I want some pods to be able to live in the sand (if that's what they do?)....does walmart or home depot sell some kind of cheap sand that I could seed with sand from another tank? thanks!
Matt

 

[smcdonn]

Well the good sand is the non silica sand. Southdown and a few other company's have it. It's really hard to find. Some people have found it at there home depots but I have had no such luck. From what I have read, silica sand won't hurt anything it just doesn't have the buffering capability of the calcium based sand (I think it's calcium based sand). I refuse to spend the $35/20lb bag of live sand from the LFS so I just went to lowes and picked up 3, 50lb bags of play sand. Not quite as white as the live sand but at 3.99 per 50lb bag you cant beat it. Hope this helps a bit

 

[Nabob89]

ok ill look for the non silica sand....but its not that big of a deal to me....thanks!
Matt

 

[romunov]

Silica sand is just fine. For a bunch of "pods", you'll need a bit coarser sand, similar to crushed coral.