Sand from Port A or CC?

[phippsj]

Has anyone used sand from Port Aransas or Corpus in their actual tanks? Not sure if there is a way to collect / clean live sand, or even use sand from the beach if it is well rinsed. Just kind of curious and can't seem to find any answers via search.

[ballardjr2000]

i asked the same thing when i was in guam on fishgeeks.com and the answer i got was DON'T USE collected sand. basically no matter how well you rinse it you can pick up toxins etc. and the beaches in guam are very very clean and nice. so best bet just pay and buy the stuff. its collected from far off shore and cleaned very well. better to be safe than sorry just my .02

[JimD]

People have used it but its not the desired sand. You really want a calcium based sand, coastal sand is silicone based.

[Squiers007]

I have some in my tank right now. We brought some back with us from the beach and let it cook in the summer Corpus sun for a few days, making sure to mix it around so that it was completely dry. Now of course, at this point it is not live sand, but we got a cup full of live sand from a friend to seed the beach stuff and have had no problems for a little over a year now.