Play sand and clorox

Hey guys. This is my first post on the forums. So basically here is a little background...

I am currently a senior college student. After years of not owning an aquarium I have decided to purchase a 55 gallon start kit from petsmart. I also plan on using sand for the substrate. I've done a lot of research and found that play sound from Home Depot is usable as long as its cleaned. Well, it just so happens that I had 2 bags of this on my back porch that I had as leftovers from when I did some landscaping about 6 months ago.

So I began purging the sand of all the lighter particles, etc. Since the sand had been sitting outside for a while and had gotten damp, I decided that maybe I should clorox it. Well, I did.. and it was probably more than the recommended 1:20 bleach/water ratio. I also let it sit in there over night :-X

Is this sand worthless? If I let it dry out will the clorox evaporate? What are my best odds? Should I just go buy more sand? Should I try pool filter sand (I plan on getting bottom dwellers such as loaches so I'd like the sand to be smooth)?

Thanks for any help you can give and sorry about the wall of text!

Also anyone know where I can get wood and rocks to use in the aquarium? And should I do live plants? I kind of want to but I'm not sure of the amount of work that they will require.

 

Welcome to Fishlore

I would go head and get new sand as the exsisting sand you have is Bad for the fish.

Do You know about the aquarium nitro cycle? heres a link:https://www.fishlore.com/NitrogenCycle.htm

 

Welcome to Fishlore

I would go head and get new sand as the exsisting sand you have is Bad for the fish.

Do You know about the aquarium nitro cycle? heres a link:https://www.fishlore.com/NitrogenCycle.htm

Thanks, Ty. I've read up on the nitrogen cycle a lot, but I am hoping to speed it up as much as I can.

Is Play Sand still good, just the old one that I have is bad?

 

Welcome to the forum!

I'd ditch the play sand and get pool filter sand. I was quite unimpressed with the play sand I got.

 

Hello and Welcome to Fish Lore!

I have seen pool filter sand being recommended more than play sand. If I had to choose, I would also go with pool filter sand.

Ken