Coarse or fine sand as substrate for natural planted tank?

HI all, I have about 40 pounds of Petco black sand I was going to put into my tank as a cap over soil in my natural planted tank (55-gal build-out)... but I've been hesitating from putting it in. I just noticed that it is very fine. I have another 10 gallon natural planted tank, also with Petco black sand and it is much coarser. I actually prefer the look of the coarser sand (~2mm in size) to the finer sand (perhaps a 1/2 mm or less in size). I plopped a handful of the fine sand into the 55-gal tank, it looks ok (almost like silt), and doesn't seem to blow away (not yet anyway).

Annoyingly, the Petco black sand isn't labeled any differently, but the lot number is different ("4A" vs "5A")... it definitely "floats" more when I try to wash it than the coarser version. I noticed the difference by staring at the bag for over 10 minutes at Petco, people probably thought I had OCD looking at two bags side by side... I couldn't believe they wouldn't label the bag differently b/c the sand is definitely "different"!

I discovered the inverted bottle trick to bypass washing the sand, tested it in a bucket and it works really well. This guys uses this method w/ discus in the tank, so it must be "safe", right?

Makes me feel silly spending hours rinsing the sand on my other tank.

Anyway, is the finer sand "better" than coarser sand for a natural planted tank? Does it make any real difference other than appearance? I don't want to "mess up" my tank build w/ the wrong sand, if that makes sense. Thanks!

 

Hmm, that's interesting. So you're saying petco had both at their store? the finer and the coarser?
The only difference would be appearance imho. I also prefer a coarser sand; it won't clog up your filter and will easily drop down (and stay down) over your dirt.

 

Yes, they sell "sand" but some bags have finer sand than others. You need to check the lot number before buying. But the bag itself (front label) doesn't specify grain size.

 

I think I agree with Cindi, course sand will stay down and not kick up as much. It would especially help when you're siphoning. Most of the grains would drop down rather than be sucked up.

 

When using either coarse or fine sand, I use a slightly different method than I use with gravel; as both tend to keep waste and uneaten food on the surface of the substrate, when cleaning, I just sort of whirl the Python end about in order to draw up loose material from the surface, and then just siphon it from there. Seems to work well.
Best of luck, rick

 

I do the same, but sometimes I get too close and touch the sand and when that happens I like that most of the sand falls back down.