Carib Sea Super Natural Moonlight Sand for Aquarium, 5-Pound (2 Pack)

I received this aquarium sand yesterday. I bought it primarily because I purchased five assassin snails and the love sand. I have a 50 gallon established freshwater tank. I already have soils and gravel at the bottom for my live plants, but assassin snails need sand, and this sand had great reviews. Cleaning it was easy and I just followed the directions on the bag. Waited 30 minutes for the sand to settle before reintroducing the fish to the aquarium. My Corydoras are having a field day! I am infested with mystery snails, so I’m excited to see if assassin snails help with the population and love seeing the pretty sand in my tank. Highly recommend.

There are two versions of the Crystal River Sand from Caribsea. One is just the sand. The other comes packed pre-cultured with nitrifying bacteria.The version that comes pre-cultured with nitrifying bacteria will come in the same plastic bag, but the sand will be moist. And it is not recommended that you rinse it out. Within the bag, you will find two small packets. One is a dechlorinator. The other contains a floculant, to help clear cloudy water. If you are starting a new tank, this is the one that I would recommend. It helps eliminate deadly ammonia spikes. Naturally, you will still want to start with hardy fish until the tank stabilizes.This is a beautiful substrate. The grain size will range from fine to medium. The size is large enough that you can vacuum the bottom without losing too much of your substrate in the siphon hose. This is the ideal size, in my opinion, for most situations. The grains are small enough so that fish feces and other debris cannot work their way into the substrate. And yet, large and heavy enough not to get too much of it get siphoned out during tank maintenance. Some fish species, like Corydoras and German Rams prefer a fine, sand substrate like this."Crystal" comes from some small, clear grains that catch the light and actually shine. Almost like a sparkle, but not bright. You can use this in a fish-only tank or you can even use this as the substrate for a planted tank. This could very well be the perfect substrate, except for one thing. If you have bright lights, algae will grow on this sand. And that ruins the beauty of it. Darker sand still grows algae, but hides it.Bottom line. If you can keep your tank clean, this is perfect for you. If you are slack on maintenance, pick a darker sand. There is a black sand from the same manufacturer called Tahitian Moon. It is slightly finer and it hides algae very well.Oh, and one other thing. If you keep rainbows, they will tend to exhibit their best colors when their sand is dark.Update: I bought a five-pound bag to replace the small amount that I lose through the gravel vacuum hose during each water change. Some will leave the tank when you get rid of unwanted plants too.

Sand is beautiful. A bit beige mixed with white, but the crystals are still very pretty. A bit hard to wash without a hose, but a good few rinses in a bucket like washing rice, helped. Just don't dump the water in the drain as its bad if sand is stuck in the drains! I toss the cloudy water into the streets instead. I like the extra little packet of bio-magnet clarifier. It helped the water clear up faster. Nice touch.This filled a fair thin layer over half my elongated 35 gallon tank. You can see in photos. I will need 3 more bags if I want a thicker 1 inch layer to fill my entire tank. Luckily, half looks pretty enough. I have not tried cleaning it yet, so a bit worried that sand might get sucked in my pump. Guess I'll know on cleaning day.Hope it works out. ;)

The sand does look nice and comes to you clean, it'll only take a minute to wash. My only problems are it's not very soft or fine, which is what I was looking for for cory catfish. Also, one bag only fills up about 5 gallons so I ended up having to mix 2 bags of this with play sand to fill up my 20 gallon. If you don't mind spending the money go ahead, but regular old play sand will do the job for a lot cheaper (it'll just take a lot longer to wash before you use it.)

Will never use ugly waste trapping gravel again! Dont force yourself to look at a boring bare bottom tank! This is perfect for fish to forage through, especially goldfish, and is really beautiful to look at. Did I mention this brand won’t annoyingly be sucked up by your syphon?

One bag was enough to cover my standard 10 gallon tank. You probably need more if you are planning on planting live plants. It looks really pretty and natural... way better than gravel IMHO.

This is a nice color of sand and looks good under the light. It is also nice that the waste and debris does not get mixed in it, so cleaning is pretty simple with a light gravel vacuum. The liquid that comes with the sand to help with any cloudiness also worked well; within 24 hrs it was clear. One bag covered the bottom of my five gallon tank (an approximate 11 x 10 surface) and is about two inches deep.

Kind of sharp sand, not the soft smooth kind. Worried about my newts underbelly but he seems okay with it. Easy to clean the tank with a siphon and spot clean with a baster in between big cleanings. Just can't put the siphon end down on the sand obviously, but holding it up off the sand like a half inch-inch doesn't suck the sand up and works well just fyi. Color in the pic looks pretty true to the real thing. Not too white, more a beige-grey color.

Bought this to get rid of gnats and bugs that came with my plant and it worked! You need to add sand to the top (about an inch or two) so the gnats can’t lay more eggs in the soil (they only lay eggs an inch or so into the top layer) and the hatched bugs can’t climb out. You should be bug free after 1-2weeks. Added bonus is that the sand looks really pretty in the pot and doesn’t interfere with watering. Highly recommend.

My hamster loves this. She uses it as a litter box as well as to play in and absorb oils from her fur to stay clean. Just bake it at 400 degrees F for an hour to sanitize and then after cooled off, put it in a shallow box or bowl big enough for hammy to climb over the edge and have space to play in. Having this helps her bedding last longer, too.

This substrate provides a really nice natural environment for your tank. The sand is very soft, not sharp and it is very easy to clean. I have corydoras that are constantly searching the sand with their barbels for food. They have no problem with this substrate because the grains are of ideal size. Neither too fine, which makes your water dusty, and not too big like small rocks. In fact, the grains of sand are large enough to vacuum the bottom without losing too much substrate like fine sand does. Conversely, the grains are small enough so that debris (algae, excrement, food) cannot infiltrate the substrate.For rinsing:I put the sand in a large bowl and run fresh tap water through the bowl. When it's full, I stir and gently remove the water from the top. Then, I start again 5-6 times, being careful to avoid losing too much sand in the sink. Only the fine suspended particles need to be removed.Clean technique and without cloudy water:My tank being already in operation and planted, I put the sand directly into it with the bottle technique. To tell you the truth, my water didn't even get cloudy with this method! It consists in filling a plastic bottle (e.g. a 2L Coke bottle) with sand through a funnel. When your bottle is full, you screw the cap on and put the bottle in your tank as close to the bottom as possible. You unscrew the cap with your hands in the water and the sand flows out of the bottle without making any unwanted fog! This sand is perfect for not blurring the water!Quantity required:As an example, a minimum of two 5 pound bags are required for a 15 gallon aquarium of 41x39x39 cm (16x15x 5") to obtain a good two inches of sand.================= Français =================Ce substrat procure un environnement naturel vraiment très joli à votre aquarium. Le sable est très doux, aucunement coupant et il est très facile à nettoyer. J'ai des corydoras qui fouillent constamment le sable avec leurs barbillons pour trouver leur nourriture. Ils n'ont aucun problème avec ce substrat car les grains sont de taille idéale. Ni trop fin, qui rendent votre eau poussière, ni trop gros comme les petites roches. En fait, les grains de sable sont suffisamment gros pour aspirer le fond sans perdre une trop grande quantité de substrat comme le sable fin. À l'inverse, les grains sont suffisamment petits pour que les débris (algue, excrément, nourriture) ne puissent pas s'infiltrer dans le substrat.Pour le rinçage:J'ai mis le sable dans un grand bol et fait couler de l'eau fraîche du robinet dans le bol. Quand c'est plein, je remue et je vide délicatement l'eau sur le dessus. Puis, je recommence 5-6 fois en faisant attention de ne pas perdre trop de sable dans l'évier. Seules les particules fines en suspension doivent être débarrassées.Technique propre et sans eau brouillée:Mon aquarium étant déjà en fonction et planté, j'ai mis le sable directement dans celle-ci avec la technique de la bouteille. Pour tout vous dire, mon eau n'a même pas brouillée avec cette méthode! Il s'agit de remplir de sable une bouteille en plastique (ex. un 2L de Coke) avec un entonnoir. Quand votre bouteille est pleine, vous vissez le bouchon et entrer la bouteille dans votre aquarium le plus près que possible du fond. Vous dévissez le bouchon avec vos mains dans l'eau et le sable s'écoule de la bouteille sans faire de brouillard indésirable! Ce sable est parfait pour ne pas brouiller l'eau!Quantité requise:À titre d'exemple, au minimum deux sacs de 5 livres sont requis pour un aquarium 15 gallons de 41x39x39 cm (16x15x 5 po) afin d'obtenir un bon deux pouce de sable.

Used this to bed some terrariums and cactus pots. Bought it because it is not shell-based sand, so it won’t degrade to increase salt or calcium in my plant pots. Worked well!

Decent quality, very soft and light sand which could be a problem for planting larger plants. I bought 2 5lbs bags for my 10 gallon and I might buy one more as it's a bit thin but I love the colour, very bright and clean but still natural. Rinsed it out three times till the water ran clear, The picture added is right after set up and as you can see theres virtually no cloudiness in my tank