Galveston Sand (1 Viewer)

[Guest]

Looking up websites and found that companies are selling Gulf area sand. Does that mean I can go to Galveston and pick up my own sand from the beach?

 

[chriskb3]

You can, but you dont really know what's in that sand. It's like using Galveston water for your water changes.

If you rinsed it out REALLY well, then you *should* be able to use it, but personally, I wouldnt take the chance.

Also, the Gulf is quite a large area and most of it does have good clean water/sand, just not around here

 

[reesetricted]

+1

You can get free sand on here from time to time or at the most pay $.50 a pound.

I considered going down corpus/padre way to get some live sand, but in the end decided against it for the above reasons.

 

[CBBSteve]

Hi, rcarnes.

Problem with Texas sand is that its just plain ugly...

A couple of years ago we had a guy on one of the tank tours who used the white quartz sand from Florida, it was very nice looking. That's probably what you heard about.

good luck,
Steve

 

[sbfuller]

i used some crushed shell from galveston, I like the look and it doesn't get blown around much. here is a pic

 

[Tempset]

I love the look sbfuller has created. Awesome. And just as soon as I can get down there, I'm scooping up 2-3 30gal tubs worth.

I won't just throw it in the tank, I'll spend a while in the bathroom tub filling each tub up and "swishing" it all around unlocking the stuck debris so it can all flow down the drain.

 

[paraletho]

Looks good but I had a rough shell bed like that. Talk about a detritus trap it gets really deep in there. After about a year I was having so many problems I had to completely change the sand bed.

 

[Tempset]

Looks good but I had a rough shell bed like that. Talk about a detritus trap it gets really deep in there. After about a year I was having so many problems I had to completely change the sand bed.

I hadn't considered that. Hmm

 

[black_sedan]

Looks good but I had a rough shell bed like that. Talk about a detritus trap it gets really deep in there. After about a year I was having so many problems I had to completely change the sand bed.

same thing I was thinking, but it looks nice though

 

[Guest]

I live on Galveston island and have been managing several tanks for Texas A&M University for the past year. I have found that the shell hash is a very poor substrate. It cant make an anoxic pocket for nitrogen fixing bacteria from what Ive seen. The shells also don't move much unless manually stirred. If not stirred it develops a nasty, black algae layer.

 

[Ophiura]

You also have to consider that it is very fine particle siliceous sand, not calcareous. This can make a difference if you are doing a reef tank, as carbonate sand can help with buffering and is also the more "natural" substrate for most reef critters. Siliceous sand is from things like weathered granite, so it can also contain "normal" things that we might nonetheless consider to be impurities in out tank (iron, etc).

Siliceous sand can and does work but it is not my personal preference. I would personally get it offshore if using it, and not from a beach.

Shell hash has the pitfalls of crushed coral (detritus trap), and can limit the animals (whether sand sifters or things that would be irritated - eg rays).

It would be great in a local tank biotope set up.