20 Best Sand For Planted Aquarium (2023 Updated)

I bought this for my Glofish Betta to complement his color. I followed all the directions & rinsed the gravel well. 24 hours later, I wake up to find him dead and his water all cloudy, even though I did an 80:20 water change just yesterday and the filter works just fine.

I’ve had him for 8 months and have had no problems before using this gravel. I looked up other reviews of this gravel from different sites, and other people report their fish dying within 24 hours of adding this gravel.

I’m devastated and wish I had never added this to his tank. Please reconsider before buying this.

I converted a regular 55 gallon tank to a Glo Fish tank and added this gravel for ambiance. It is stunning and very colorful. After having the same old gravel for the last 12 years or so, time to Glo it up! Great and as advertised!.

The substrate has a nice texture for planting but my water has been a shade of brown since I started using this substrate. The water will be “clear”, but its a crystal clear shade of brown. Any disruption of the substrate, like vacuuming, moving plants, or moving ornaments kicks up a ploom of dust and the water becomes murky.

Once the murkiness settles, everything thing in the tank is covered in brown “dust”. My betta’s bubble nests get brown debris stuck in the bubbles, add my snail’s shell has brown debris in the ridges.

I would not recommend this product, and I will now ultimately have to redo my whole aquarium.

this stuff is terrible. get the aq*eon shrimp and plant substrate instead. this made my water completely black even when carefully adding, and it gets sucked up when I try to vacuum. You could maybe use it as a lower layer if you cap it with something else, but you have to be extremely careful not to disturb it and it’s not worth the headache tbh.

It did grow my plants quite well but it’s not worth it. so messy and has already started to break down after a few weeks. I’ll be replacing all of it with the other brand, which has harder clay balls that don’t disintegrate and cloud up the water.

WONDERING HOW TO USE FLUVAL SUBSTRATE? Let me tell you now that I wasted a WHOLE BAG! DO NOT RINSE. Yes it seems CRAZY. JUST DONT! I know what the instructions say! Here is the secret. PLACE A BOWL in the middle of your aquarium – yes a BOWL! Pour water slowly in this bowl.

Do not fill this like a crazy person. POUR WATER IN THE BOWL and it will flow over. Go slow. Eventually the bowl will sink or float – KEEP POURING IN THE BOWL! SIT eye level. Do not assume you are pouring in the bowl! POUR IN THE BOWL! Is your water pretty clear?! Yeah THOUGHT SO.

SLOW AND BOWL is the key to THIS substrate. I don’t care how big your tank is. Squish the little plants, put the bowl on top and POUR! They will grow! Leave your filter on and BOOM even better by morning.

Your welcome. Sincerely ME – WHO WASTED A LOT OF MONEY!.

Pulled it out of the box and the gravel looks more grey then white and when under the light it looks worse. Also has bunch of slivers and crushed pieces. Its probably the maker wont buy from again.

Not impressed at all. Description stated 25 lbs x 2 count so mistakenly assumed that I’d be getting 50 lbs as another reviewer stated the same thing, 50 lbs for under $20. When it got here it wasn’t 50 lbs, it was 25lbs.

I could’ve gotten 25 lbs of rocks much cheaper at my local hardware store. Deceptive description.

very good aquarium gravel, very good $.

I bought Ivory Coast for my Mbuna tank. I cannot remember how many bags for my 56 column tank but I have a bed of about 2 1/2 inches, depending on where the fish decide to dig. The water was completely clear within a couple of hours and completely cycled and ready for it’s inhabitants.

I test my water on a regular basis and have never had to add any supplements to my tank to achieve perfect levels. I’ve had this tank set up for a couple of years and other than changing the water in the canister filter and topping off what has evaporated, I have never performed a water change.

I believe in the what ain’t broke don’t fix approach. The Ivory Coast is more white than the picture but it is a perfect blend of light and dark to bring out the best colors of the fish. This has been the easiest tank for me to maintain in over 20 years.

I’m going to chalk all the negative reviews up to user error. My tank was cloudy for exactly 12 or 13 hours. I did not run the protein skimmer during that time. I did, however, add carbon to my tank it made sure that I added the biomagnet packets to the sand.

You have to cut them open and pour it in there I’m almost certain a lot of people missed that packet in the sand because you have to dig for it. The sand is absolutely beautiful and my power head (jebao Scp-90) doesn’t move it around.

A little bit of it does float up when I stir the sand bed but not a large amount to make the entire tank cloudy again. I bought new sand because I swapped tanks and didn’t want to use the old sand I just kept one cup of it to put in the back.

I didn’t lose a single coral, fish, or invertebrate.

I bought this a year and a half ago and the i i have a 55 gallon tank and the paint started chipping a little bit right away, but now there are paint chips everywhere and my local pet store said that this is not very good for the fish and that we should change it out.

Would not recommend.

I bought this for my grandson. We bought him a beta and the rocks match the beta purely coincidental by the way. But the rocks are a nice red. Easy to clean no fuss no muss. Love it very happy with my purchase.

Rocks are great, always put off a little dust, even after rinse, but the red is very intense. I prefer blue. Usually go bad after a year, starting to turn white. Great though!

I bought the white rocks when I decided to redecorate my fish tank. First of all my fish tank looks so nice, the white really brings the whole thing together. Seem like decent quality rocks. I sanitized them with boiling water before putting them in the tank.

No paint flaking. I did notice a lot of dust when I strained them after rinsing. (you should always rinse and strain new rocks bc the dust is very bad for your fish to breath in) That wouldn’t have bothered me so much if it was only dust.

However, a pretty big portion of the rocks are TINY. Like almost sand. I lost a good 1/4 of the rock when I strained them. (I used a cullender with very small holes). Waisted a good portion of my rocks.

and almost destroyed my sink (I noticed it wasn’t just dust coming out and managed to quickly block the drain. cant imagine what it would have done to my sink if I hadn’t caught it so fast) and made a huge mess for me to clean up- scooping handfuls of basically course sand out of my sink.

If I wanted sand for my tank I would have ordered it- I wanted rocks. Disappointing. But the quality of the remaining rocks and how nice my tank looks with them kept me from giving them 1 star.

I know that not every screen depicts colors the same way but this was entirely off by a lot. I purchased “Cumberland River” stones and here in the pictures, the pieces are slightly warm but neutral. In real life, the bag is labeled correctly but the stones are like “Nutty Pebbles”.

They looked SUPER yellow, horrible and everyone said they looked like corn! I spent a whole day manually sifting and picking out the stones from my aquarium. Then I was too embarrassed to ask Chewy for a return because I opened the bag already.

I rinsed it before putting into my tank and the water came out bright red. I thought maybe it was just the initial rinse so I washed it several more times with the same result. I put it in a bucket so I could move the gravel around to rinse it outside of the bag but the water was still coming out red.

After letting it sit for a few minutes I thought the color would settle, instead it stained the bucket. I would not trust using this with fish unless you want everything stained the color of the gravel.

This is the best substrate for the reef aquarium in my opinion. Perfect size for sand sifters and helps maintain PH. Also easy to vacuum for detritus removal

It’s on me for not doing better research before buying. I liked the look of it and fell for the hype in the descriptions. The bottom line is, it’s crushed lava rock. It’s inert meaning there’s no sort of fertilizer.

In the description it rattles off a list of minerals and whatnot, but they only refer to what the rock is made of. It doesn’t actually provide those to your tank. The good? I like how it looks and the porous nature provides more surface area for beneficial bacteria.

Supposedly, it will draw your fertilizer out of the water column and store it, but I’m not sure about that. The bad? There’s no fertilizer or nutrients like advertised. That means you need root tabs for rooted plants.

Unfortunately, you need to plant them deep, so you may have to buy more than you need. In my Fluval Spec V, the 10 lb bag only put 1″ in front sloping to about 2″ in the back. Tank is just under 7″ deep.

You’ll need 2 bags to get enough depth to keep the tabs from leeching into the water column. Speaking of burying things. It was a nightmare to plant in. Plants would not stay. I had to ram them down then push the substrate into place so they wouldn’t float way when pulling out my tweezers.

If I had to buy again, I probably would get aqua soil from Fluval or ada. Also, as others have mentioned, my bag had leaked all over the box. I called chewy and they said they couldn’t expedite shipping for the replacement.

Really annoying since the initial order took almost a week. To my surprise, it came next day.

This substrate is heavy enough to root plants and is a vast improvement over others of its kind. Just make sure you get enough. I recommend two 20 pound bags for a 30 to 40 gallon aquarium if you intend to cover the entire bottom.

My plants were visibly healthier with new growth after just one week. Some half-dead plants from a lesser tank came back to life! I will definitely be using this as I convert other tanks to planted. For scaping ideas, look up Serpa Designs if you find black substrate unappealing.

I did a white sand “beach front” in my main planted tank and sloped it back to blend with the Eco-Complete substrate. Amazing stuff, and it has a minimal effect on the PH if you do everything correctly.

If you’re new to an aquarium and wondering what substrate to get, this will be your best value for a decent substrate. There’s no rinsing required, but you can rinse it if you want to avoid your tank being black for the first few days.

If you’re making a planted aquarium, you will need root tabs for fertilizer if you want your plants to grow. Alternatively, you can get organic potting/top soil and place it on the bottom layer then cover it with this.

Using soil will make the tank messy, so you might not want that. ADA, Ultum, or NeoSoil are expensive, but they come fertilized. This is not 20lbs as you can see from the two bags I weighed. It also comes moist with beneficial bacteria.

These are super easy to open, rinse, and add to your aquarium. I mixed this with substrate so that my plants would have an easier time rooting end it looks wonderful. If you’re wondering how many rocks are colorful, it’s much less than you think from the photos.

For me that is a good thing, but if you were looking for a ratio, personally for mine it was about 1/4 colored and the rest was black. Personally I love this because I have a planted tank and I only slightly wanted a pop of color.

It’s just gravel but it works great! I’m very happy that none of this is sharp as I have snails. I think mixing it with substrate makes a perfectly wonderful floor for plants and bottom feeders. But that’s just my personal opinion !.

After reading the reviews and not being able to find the substrate I really wanted, I decided to give this a try for my smaller aquarium. I’m so glad I ignored the boneheads who didn’t read the instructions and cried about the clouding being an issue.

It’s perfect for what I needed. It does cause clouding but as long as you follow the instructions on the bag(which also explain this) the clouding will resolve in 1-6 hours. DO NOT rinse this gravel!! It defeats the purpose of the bacteria and the plant nutrients!!.

My mild clouding resolved in 2 hours. It would’ve been less if I didn’t need to turn my filtration to the lowest setting to accommodate my fish. It’s pretty, very natural looking and holds plants in place.

I like heavily planted aquariums. A substrate that provides nutrients, allows for healthy rooting and looks natural is perfect! It instantly cycled my aquarium, but I never rely on that just in case the bacteria has died due to heat or time.

Instead I buy pure amonium and add bacteria I trust to instantly cycle. You can buy Dr Tims Amonium on Chewy for 3$. A must have for any aquarist. If you don’t have fish to add you have to keep feeding your bacteria or it dies.

To add this gravel with minimum clouding and WITHOUT RINSING as directed, I laid a towel down next to the aquarium and the bag of gravel down flat on the towel, leaving it in the plastic bag chewy mailed it in as well.

I cut a large flap in the middle, enlarging the flap as needed along the way. I took a mason jar and scooped out one section at a time. Using the flap to push the jar against and turn it upside down, draining the extra liquid between each scoop.

I laid each scoop close to where it would eventually be flattened or shaped. Repeat process till the bag is empty. I only ended up with a few drops of the fluid on my floor. I took the bags of liquid to the sink(ig you don’t you’ll probably need more than one towel).

Dumped it. Rinsed it a little. Shaped my gavel how I wanted it. Put the original bag over the top of the gavel and then added water(how the professional aqua-scapers add water). When I only needed about 10-20% water to fill it up I added my plants, wood & other items.

Topped water off. Added my water treatments/nutrients for plants & animals. Waited for acceptable temperatures to be reached and then acclimated my fish, snails, shrimp etc. Added everyone and turned the lights off(reduces stress when moving aquatic life).

In the morning it was gorgeous, everyone was happy and ready to eat!.

After ruling everything else out, we tested this substrate in little jars. As in our planted tank, it raises the ph from our well water of 7. 0 to 8. 5 within 24 hours. Since the packaging says it doesn’t do that, it’s been disheartening to struggle so much over the course of three months.

We had two mini-suckerfish who like a ph of 6 – 7. 5 and we did lose one, which made my children very sad. First, we tried PH regular tests, but then had to order the High PH tests to get an accurate measurement.

Even though it’s pretty, I can’t recommend if you’re aiming for a slightly acidic planted tank. We also found an old fish-hook in amongst the rock when first rinsing it. A rare thing, I hope.

IT WAS MORE LK COAL, HAD LK A BLACK SOOT, NOT GRAVEL BCUZ IT WOULD NOT HV HAD SOOT, GRAVEL CAN HV FINE LITTLE TINY PIECES, BIT WHERE IT GETS IN UR HANDS CHARCOAL! IT’S OK,I USED FOR OUTSIDE ON MY DOGS POTTY AREA.

WORKED GOOD. = ).