# Pool filter sand only?



## minorhero (Mar 28, 2019)

RichE said:


> For a planted tank ( My first real go at it), can i use just pool filter sand? Its a 90 gallon tank so I need a lot and trying to keep the cost down.
> 
> I was looking at the miracle grow organic soil and then sand, but after reading a little but it seems I might be able to get away with just pool filter sand.
> 
> ...


Yes, pool filter sand by itself is fine. This is what I am doing in my 120P tank. Here is a picture of the tank this morning:










You will need to add ferts as soon as you add plants. The pool filter sand is just there to hold the plants down, provide places for the roots to grow, and allow for organic waste to build up in the substrate for the plants to use. It does not provide any nutrition on its own (meaning its inert). 

The terms low tech and high tech refer to whether co2 is being injected. If co2 is being injected its a high tech tank. If its not being injected its a low tech tank. The term medium tech has basically evolved because people like the word 'tech' and don't want to consider their tank 'low'. In other words, medium tech is not really well defined. 

So your tank will be high tech as soon as you start injecting co2.

Good luck!


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## EmotionalFescue (Jun 24, 2020)

RichE said:


> I will be running co2 and down the road adding liquid ferts


If your only substrate is sand, you'll need to add fertilizers from the start. What's your water like?


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## RichE (Sep 15, 2013)

EmotionalFescue said:


> If your only substrate is sand, you'll need to add fertilizers from the start. What's your water like?


It's wet 

Its city water ( metro Detroit)

Would I be better off putting a thin layer of Mircle grow organic soil down then the pool filter sand just for extra?

I can add ferts as soon as I add plants, I will have fish in before I add plants.


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## EmotionalFescue (Jun 24, 2020)

RichE said:


> It's wet


lol, well you should be all good then. now, if you had some of that dry water...


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## RichE (Sep 15, 2013)

Now teh next question, is there a difference in pool filter sand other then one being white and one being a light brown?

I am seeing it range for $10 for 50 lbs to $25 for 50 lbs


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## Asteroid (Jul 26, 2018)

RichE said:


> Now teh next question, is there a difference in pool filter sand other then one being white and one being a light brown?
> 
> I am seeing it range for $10 for 50 lbs to $25 for 50 lbs


There shouldn't be much of a difference. PFS should have similar grain size. I would definitely shy away from white since discoloration will result from bacteria, etc and it might not look aesthetically good. Before you use it, make sure you want light or dark substrate. There is dark sand available as well.


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## minorhero (Mar 28, 2019)

RichE said:


> Now teh next question, is there a difference in pool filter sand other then one being white and one being a light brown?
> 
> I am seeing it range for $10 for 50 lbs to $25 for 50 lbs


My personal favorite is HTH brand of pool filter sand which can be purchased at Ace Hardware for 15 dollars per 50lbs in Maryland. Not sure about pricing where you are. I have used lighthouse brand as well and both work fine for plants but I prefer the slightly darker color of hth. There are other sands out there some even cheaper. Play sand is cheaper BUT it needs to be washed a lot before it can be used.

Going forward you will also want to buy a range of testing kits for your tank. Not sure about your experience with freshwater tanks, but you will want a test kit for ammonia, nitrite, nitrate, and ph. Additionally a test kit for GH and KH is VERY helpful for figuring out plants. And before you can add fish you will need to cycle your tank. Again, not sure how familiar you are with aquariums so this might be old hat for you. The cheapest most accessible test kit is the API Freshwater Master Test kit. That includes everything but the GH/KH tests which can be purchased separately. Do yourself a favor and skip the test strips which are fine for quick checks but not accurate enough to rely on when setting up a new tank.

I would not add dirt to a tank, especially if you are new to plants. It adds a LOT of potential problems which can easily be avoided by not having it there. There are also essentially no benefits to having it in a tank when you are planning to do regular liquid fertilizer dosing. 

Speaking of fertilizer dosing. You will need a complete fertilizer solution for the tank. There are many available. My personal favorite is Nicolg Thrive (or ThriveC for tanks without injected co2), but there are other options that work well. You should figure that out before buying plants.


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## Asteroid (Jul 26, 2018)

Good practical advise from @minorhero

How much darker is the HTH than Lighthouse? Probably try it next time. I've been also using black sand now. You don't notice any discoloration and the shrimp poop disappears. Light sand does contrast better though with alot of hardscape.


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## minorhero (Mar 28, 2019)

Asteroid said:


> Good practical advise from @minorhero
> 
> How much darker is the HTH than Lighthouse? Probably try it next time. I've been also using black sand now. You don't notice any discoloration and the shrimp poop disappears. Light sand does contrast better though with alot of hardscape.


It's not much darker, but it looks more natural in my opinion. Here is an old picture I took of the two. HTH is on the left and lighthouse is on the right. HTH has bigger and more irregular granules with some of those granules being darker then others. Lighthouse is more uniform.










To break up the uniform nature of either I take safe-t-sorb or fine gravel and add a few handfuls to the surface of any tank. Over time it gets moved around by current and fish and ends up looking really really good in my opinion while still hiding the poop.

Here is a closeup of the front of my 120p tank.


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## Asteroid (Jul 26, 2018)

Looks good. I didn't realize HTH had different grain sizes, figured for pool filters it will all be uniform.


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## minorhero (Mar 28, 2019)

Asteroid said:


> Looks good. I didn't realize HTH had different grain sizes, figured for pool filters it will all be uniform.


It's their sloppy quality control which makes them teh awesome for aquariums


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## LidijaPN (12 mo ago)

minorhero said:


> The terms low tech and high tech refer to whether co2 is being injected. If co2 is being injected its a high tech tank. If its not being injected its a low tech tank. The term medium tech has basically evolved because people like the word 'tech' and don't want to consider their tank 'low'.


I am literally still laughing at this.


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## Mr.Shenanagins (May 2, 2017)

The lack of uniformity is what makes PFS so attractive and natural looking. I’d stay away from play sand as it’s too fine and messy. If you want a dark sand, blasting sand is cheap too.

in regards to adding soil, I’d do your research. Just because it’s cheap doesn’t mean it’s as simple as dumping it in the tank. I personally use it, but I am meticulous with how it’s implemented to provide the most optimum environment for success.


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## Seattle_Aquarist (Jun 15, 2008)

RichE said:


> Would I be better off putting a thin layer of Mircle grow organic soil down then the pool filter sand just for extra?
> 
> I can add ferts as soon as I add plants, I will have fish in before I add plants.


Hi @RichE

If you put soil under the sand when you go to move established plants the roots will bring the soil to the top of the sand.....not really appealing.


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## Virtus (11 mo ago)

Another vote for going with just sand. I use HTH for light and Black Diamond Blasting Sand from Tractor Supply for dark. 

I've tried doing aquasoil with a sand cap in the past and it's impossible to keep the soil from making it's way up; it looks terrible when it does and basically impossible to fix.


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## somewhatshocked (Aug 8, 2011)

minorhero said:


> It's their sloppy quality control which makes them teh awesome for aquariums


Used to think it was a quality control issue, as well, until I tried a few fancy brands from a pool service center near me. HTH rivals all of them in terms of quality and uniformity, weirdly. At least when you consider how much cheaper it is. The slightly varied grain size helps filter out varying sizes of crud. And the best part? It's $7.99 at the hardware store up the block from me. Even cheaper when pool season is in full swing.

I think coloration also varies a bit by region. The stuff I've purchased in the DC area is a bit lighter than what I've purchased in Louisville. And the bags I got a couple years ago in Palm Springs are quite a bit darker than my local stuff - almost CaribSea Peace River in coloration. It's absurd and borderline embarrassing that we've actually scrutinized _pool filter sand_ (!) to such an extent in this hobby. I love it.


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## Mr.Submarine (10 mo ago)

I purchased some HTH pool filter sand recently in the DC/VA/MD area and will try to post a close-up to add a data point to the color and granule size discussion above. At a quick look the HTH sand looks on the light-ish side of the spectrum and probably lighter than the ADA Colorado sand I bought as well.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

I also just bought 5 bags of HTH. Locally it was only available from two places, ACE and Meijer. ACE wanted 22.99 per 50lbs bag and Meijer was 14.99. 

Might be worth checking around for the best price. For reference, I'm in the Chicago area. The nice thing about Meijer is I ordered online and they brought it out to my truck.


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## Mr.Shenanagins (May 2, 2017)

somewhatshocked said:


> It's absurd and borderline embarrassing that we've actually scrutinized _pool filter sand_ (!) to such an extent in this hobby. I love it.


We wouldn’t have to if the aquarium industry sold their products honestly instead of gouging and taking advantage. The hobby would be more supported if they weren’t so greedy, just my .02

I personally used #50 aquaquartz available at Leslie’s for 14.99. First bag I bought was fantastic and very varied in grain size. Most recently it’s been more uniform in size, but still attractive.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

Mr.Shenanagins said:


> We wouldn’t have to if the aquarium industry sold their products honestly instead of gouging and taking advantage. The hobby would be more supported if they weren’t so greedy, just my .02
> 
> I personally used #50 aquaquartz available at Leslie’s for 14.99. First bag I bought was fantastic and very varied in grain size. Most recently it’s been more uniform in size, but still attractive.


Agreed, but only to a certain extent. Sand, or even gravel for that matter is sold to LFS for, and I'll just make up a number, $10 for 25 lbs. The LFS doubles that price usually, so $20 for 25 lbs. 

The same goes for fish. Where this typically differs are with the bigger ticket items....aquariums, stands, filters. I remember we'd get aquariums in, like a 55 gallon tank, hood/light, and stand and sell it for $199. This is going back to the mid 90's. I think we paid like $175 to the wholesaler. Basically we're making $25 on something that takes up a lot of floor space. A larger canister filter we might charge $120 for, but we paid $85 for it. There were only certain items that exceeded the point where 50% of the price was all margin. Rare fish would get marked up a bit more, reptiles, birds, etc. Our pricing had to be competitive with the Pet Supplies Plus, Petsmart, Petco, etc....basically the big box stores who were getting better wholesale prices because of their volumes of sales. 

The LFS aren't usually the ones doing the gouging, at least from my experience. It's the big box stores who more or less set pricing for certain areas, where they're making more money than the LFS down the street who needs to compete with them. I try my best to avoid shopping at those big boxes for this reason. They drive smaller LFS out of business, which is what happened to the one I worked at throughout my teens. A Pet Supplies Plus opened up about a half mile away and our monthly numbers were basically cut in half. It sucks because the LFS are where you're more likely to get good information, answer your more complicated questions, and get higher quality fish because they actually understand how to take care of them, treat for any diseases, etc. Petsmart will sell you an obviously diseased fish if neither the person buying or the person working there are educated on fish keeping. 

Using the example above, if the LFS is paying $10 for that bag of gravel, the wholesaler is paying $5 or less. I think the greedy ones in this scenario are the wholesalers. Just because of their volumes, they can reduce their margins to 20% and still kill it. If I were a wholesaler I'd give the big boxes their same volume price, but I'd also give that price to LFS, or an even lower price knowing how hard it is for them to compete. 

What does HTH typically go for? From what I've seen the prices can range anywhere from $12 all the way up to $25 for 50 lbs. You figure the retailers are paying $5-6. 

I'm not sure what else HTH as a company sells, but if it's just PFS, then their operational costs are miniscule. They'll have a source for the raw materials (aggregate), they might have to ship it to a warehouse, unless they have their warehouses where they're sourcing the aggregate. Packaging which only includes one type of bag, and shipping. Very simple operation. If you take a CaribSea as an example, they have probably 20+ different aggregates. Those all need to be sourced in different locations. They either ship the bulk aggregate into a main operation warehouse, or multiples. More than likely only one large warehouse since multiples wouldn't make sense. They have multiple SKUs requiring different packaging for each product, along with different sizes. If they have machinery to automate the weighing and packaging, they likely don't have lines of machines for each product line so they run out a bunch of one weight and type, then readjust and fill the next size/type of bags. The operational costs are much higher. 

I think a company like CaribSea wants to make the same types of margin as HTH, but their operational costs are higher so the prices are naturally higher. If there is price gouging, it's further down the line with distributers/wholesalers.


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## Asteroid (Jul 26, 2018)

Pretty much most of the LFS in my area are gone, I'm sure for many of the reasons you mentioned. Similar to what HD/Lowes did to your local hardware store. 

They ones that survive have a good customer install base. This is usually saltwater and higher end fish. It's always a guaranteed product mover month to month on top of the servicing charge. This is where LFS need to focus and where big box doesn't play.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

Asteroid said:


> Pretty much most of the LFS in my area are gone, I'm sure for many of the reasons you mentioned. Similar to what HD/Lowes did to your local hardware store.
> 
> They ones that survive have a good customer install base. This is usually saltwater and higher end fish. It's always a guaranteed product mover month to month on top of the servicing charge. This is where LFS need to focus and where big box doesn't play.


Back in the mid to late 90's, to break even for the day we needed $1,000 in sales, not including aquariums since the margins were so small. An average weekday we'd have $1600 in sales. On weekends we'd see closer to $2K plus each day. 

As soon as a Pet Supplies Plus opened about a half mile away, we'd struggle to hit $600 per day during the week, and occasionally have good days on the weekend where we'd hit our number, but mostly the average was $1400. We began not making enough on the weekend to cover our costs and eventually had to shut the doors after 30 years in business. We actually had customers who'd go spend a dollar less for a filter at PSP and then come to us for advice. 

This is one of the reasons I never "bargain" with LFS. The UNS 120U I recently bought was from an LFS a couple miles away from me. He's been in business for at least 40 years but in 3 different locations. He quoted me a price on that tank that was $200 more than what I saw online. Everyone was out of stock but I didn't even bother negotiating. He seemed surprised and began trying to justify the price and I laughed and said I'm okay with the price, no need to justify it lol. 

But you are correct, most of the LFS still in business are more specialized in that they do saltwater, reef, planted, etc. Basically the things that the big boxes can't do, or can't do well for that matter. I have an Aquarium Adventure about a half hour away. It's an impressive store, but the prices are ridiculous on saltwater, the fish are in poor shape, and their plant section is a massive holding tank that if you look closely is full of pests. They also sell dogs and cats there which is one reason I'll never give them a dollar. I'm not a fan of pet stores selling cats and dogs since they're coming from puppy/kitten mills in most cases. 

I'm pretty sure that the big box stores business plan was specifically designed to drive LFS out of business. In almost every case I saw that they'd choose locations where there were one or more small LFS. The one nearest me moved 3 times to get away from them. Those moves couldn't have been easy.


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## Asteroid (Jul 26, 2018)

ddiomede said:


> Back in the mid to late 90's, to break even for the day we needed $1,000 in sales, not including aquariums since the margins were so small. An average weekday we'd have $1600 in sales. On weekends we'd see closer to $2K plus each day.
> 
> As soon as a Pet Supplies Plus opened about a half mile away, we'd struggle to hit $600 per day during the week, and occasionally have good days on the weekend where we'd hit our number, but mostly the average was $1400. We began not making enough on the weekend to cover our costs and eventually had to shut the doors after 30 years in business. We actually had customers who'd go spend a dollar less for a filter at PSP and then come to us for advice.
> 
> ...


Yes, if you go into big box most of their floor space is dog/cat feed. That is where the money is for them, they probably don't even need to sell fish, but I guess they get the add'l purchase when someone is shopping for Charlie the Basset Hound. 

The AA near you must have been really desperate to start selling Dog/Cat stuff. I mean it's Aquarium Adventure. I'll tell you a story. AA opened a franchise in my neck of the woods on Long Island. The store was incredible, it took up I think four storefronts in a strip shopping center. The aesthetics includng a koi pond, planted diorama type setups, etc were good. Almost like going to a public aquarium. 

Anyway they had some arrangement with a guy who did all the installs. Commercial, restaurants, residentials. Some really high-end setups. Well things turned sour between them and the store was done within a year. They never went the dog/cat supply route. So I don't know if that affected the AA near you to save themselves that way.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

Asteroid said:


> Yes, if you go into big box most of their floor space is dog/cat feed. That is where the money is for them, they probably don't even need to sell fish, but I guess they get the add'l purchase when someone is shopping for Charlie the Basset Hound.
> 
> The AA near you must have been really desperate to start selling Dog/Cat stuff. I mean it's Aquarium Adventure. I'll tell you a story. AA opened a franchise in my neck of the woods on Long Island. The store was incredible, it took up I think four storefronts in a strip shopping center. The aesthetics includng a koi pond, planted diorama type setups, etc were good. Almost like going to a public aquarium.
> 
> Anyway they had some arrangement with a guy who did all the installs. Commercial, restaurants, residentials. Some really high-end setups. Well things turned sour between them and the store was done within a year. They never went the dog/cat supply route. So I don't know if that affected the AA near you to save themselves that way.


The one near me in Hoffman Estates Illinois is massive. There's a second one in Bolingbrook I believe, but I've never been to it. There are essentially two sections to the one in Hoffman....a fish section with a hallway connecting the two and it opens up into the animal section (birds, hamsters, ferrets, dogs, cats, etc.). The hallway has two massive tanks built into each side of the wall. They're the size that you'd need to actually get in the tank to do maintenance. On the one wall is a huge African cichlid tank, and I forget what the other side was. The area they're in is significantly above the average household income. Barrington is full of really high net worth families and the suburbs surrounding there aren't doing too badly themselves. It honestly was a great location for a store of that size. The other is in a really great area too with Naperville and Hinsdale nearby. Bolingbrook is about as middle class an area as you can get, while Naperville and Hinsdale are getting up there in household income, Hinsdale more so since most of the homes are what I'd call "estates" lol.


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## Asteroid (Jul 26, 2018)

ddiomede said:


> The one near me in Hoffman Estates Illinois is massive. There's a second one in Bolingbrook I believe, but I've never been to it. There are essentially two sections to the one in Hoffman....a fish section with a hallway connecting the two and it opens up into the animal section (birds, hamsters, ferrets, dogs, cats, etc.). The hallway has two massive tanks built into each side of the wall. They're the size that you'd need to actually get in the tank to do maintenance. On the one wall is a huge African cichlid tank, and I forget what the other side was. The area they're in is significantly above the average household income. Barrington is full of really high net worth families and the suburbs surrounding there aren't doing too badly themselves. It honestly was a great location for a store of that size. The other is in a really great area too with Naperville and Hinsdale nearby. Bolingbrook is about as middle class an area as you can get, while Naperville and Hinsdale are getting up there in household income, Hinsdale more so since most of the homes are what I'd call "estates" lol.


Well, you need the good HH Income to support the install business. I knew the guy who ran the install business at AA (he ended up opening is own location, not AA) and the bills these people got were pretty, pretty high. LOL


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## Mr.Submarine (10 mo ago)

For those of you who went with HTH pool filter sand only, did you rinse it before adding to your tank, and if so what steps did you take to rinse it? I recall seeing in another thread that someone dumped it into a 5g bucket and ran a hose down into the sand, essentially forcing any light particles/dirt up and out of the bucket. Thanks!


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## Virtus (11 mo ago)

Mr.Submarine said:


> For those of you who went with HTH pool filter sand only, did you rinse it before adding to your tank, and if so what steps did you take to rinse it? I recall seeing in another thread that someone dumped it into a 5g bucket and ran a hose down into the sand, essentially forcing any light particles/dirt up and out of the bucket. Thanks!


I didn't rinse my HTH before using it and it was fine. If you feel the need to I've found 5 gallon paint strainer bags to be the easiest method.


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## Asteroid (Jul 26, 2018)

Mr.Submarine said:


> For those of you who went with HTH pool filter sand only, did you rinse it before adding to your tank, and if so what steps did you take to rinse it? I recall seeing in another thread that someone dumped it into a 5g bucket and ran a hose down into the sand, essentially forcing any light particles/dirt up and out of the bucket. Thanks!


I always rinsed mine. Put some in a bucket filled partially with water, swirled my hand through it. Rinse and repeat a few times. Not saying it's a must, but just the way I did it. There is dust that comes off.


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## Mr.Submarine (10 mo ago)

Asteroid said:


> I always rinsed mine. Put some in a bucket filled partially with water, swirled my hand through it. Rinse and repeat a few times. Not saying it's a must, but just the way I did it. There is dust that comes off.


I did this with HTH pool filter sand and a _ton_ of dust came off with the first several rinses. It took about 10-12 rinses for the water to remain clear the whole way through (using a strong jet from a standard garden hose with spray adapter).

I have a question about layering sands. I have pool filter sand and ADA Colorado sand, and while both look nice, I like the look of the Colorado sand a bit better. It has a larger grain size (and more grain size variation) than the pool filter sand too. My question is: can I use pool filter land as a thick (2-2.75”) base layer with a thin layer of Colorado sand on top? Based on the principle that the finer material settles at the bottom, there wouldn’t seem to be much risk of the Colorado sand settling below the pool filter sand. And if they mix a little bit, no big deal — they look pretty similar to start with, and the net effect might be some nice variation. Basically is there any reason I shouldn’t do this? Thanks!

Here’s a side-by-side of HTH pool filter sand and ADA Colorado by the way. The ADA sand is on the left and still in the bag, and the HTH sand is on the right and a tiny bit damp.


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## somewhatshocked (Aug 8, 2011)

Mr.Submarine said:


> can I use pool filter land as a thick (2-2.75”) base layer with a thin layer of Colorado sand on top?


Yep. As you said, the finer stuff will remain on the bottom.

In order to use less of the ADA stuff, you could push the pool filter sand back from the front and sides a bit to stick some ADA sand in front of it - disguising the pool filter sand. Then just put a thin layer of the nicer stuff on top. Not necessary but it's a cheap way to use less of the fancy stuff and make things look better to your eye.


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