20 Best Sand For Saltwater Aquarium (2023 Updated)

I love the look of black sand in my aquarium. When cleaning with an aquarium vacumn, remember that it will also vacumn up the sand as well as the debris so hold the vac a little higher. Whatever sand ends up in the bucket can be rinsed and returned to the tank.

However I have learned that this sand looks identical to black blasting sand, size medium not fine, sold in 50 lb. bags at Tractor Supply for around 8 bucks which works beautifully as aquarium sand. So while I recommend black sand, I also recommend you save yourself a lot of money and have enough sand for your tank no matter how big it is by getting the blasting sand.

This sand looks just beautiful in my 120gal goldfish tank. Really makes their colors stand out. Nice, smooth grains, not too fine or coarse. I’ve seen reviews elsewhere that say it’s challenging to rinse because some of the sand floats and I found this to be true.

It helps to keep stirring the surface with one hand while pouring out the rinse water. The other complaint I’ve seen is that even with heavy rinsing, the water is still very dark. Also true. When I filled my tank the water was inky black.

But it only took about an hour to clear once I turned on the filter. My filter is a Fluval FX6, though, and that thing is a beast. It might take longer with a less powerful filter. But it’s well worth the extra work, because it really does look amazing when you’re done.

Very PLEASED! Purchased 2 bags of the blue sand! BEAUTIFUL! Hoping in the near future there will be more PRETTY COLORS to choose from. I used this for my betta and gournami aquariums. My cute little catfish fish LOVE IT!.

The crushed coral raised my pH and water hardness. The aquarium water parameters are stable and fish loss has stopped. I use a small amount in a box filter (Bubbler by Penn Plax) in my 20 gallon tank.

Will purchase again and again! Use in all areas of the garden and aquarium. Fantastic!

This looks great in my set up. The African Cichlids are loving it and are playing around with it far more than they ever did with the aragonite sand I had in there previously. One word of caution, it takes a tremendous amount of rinsing to get it to run clean.

The first five or six rinses ran off milky white. Like I was rinsing concrete. If that had been easier I would have given this product five stars. Still, no regrets.

This substrate is ideal for aquariums where maintaining a balanced pH is critical. I use it for my African Cichlids and my pH is always on point. In addition the beige color against my black background makes the colors of my fish “Pop”.

Unlike traditional gravel, the small grains make cleaning easier because it is harder for debris to make its way to the bottom of the substrate. I love this product and will continue to use it on all my future aquariums.

Helped increase my PH in a Mbuna african cichlid tank. The Nitrates are doing better also. The fish seem to be more active and can move the small granules by mouth for their territorial spots while mating.

My tank had been well established for over a year and I have put live sand into my tank before after the fact. However on the second morning putting this into my established tank, I woke up in the morning to almost $400 of fish and live stock all dead.

The tank somehow recycled after putting in this new bag. My Nitrates and Nitrites skyrocketed overnight and all my beloved fish children were dead. Needless to say, I was very depressed and upset. There is no warning on this package of such and even the fish stores in the area, deny this as a common occurrence.

I feel very misled.

I don’t know why, but there is a huge difference in the colors. This is so fine it would not settle after a week I had fish dying. I literally did a water change, and the sand would go up the gravel vac and into my bucket no problem.

I have the exact same sand in Fiji pink, no problems it settled in less than four hours with no issues. This is the worst sand ever, the filter with bio media only that I waited hours to turn on had so much sand in it.

The fish didn’t like the sand either. They would not touch it and stayed higher up, most likely due to the thickness in the water I have never had a problem changing out subtrate with my fish still in the tank until now.

I literally was able to remove them just by placing my hand in the tank and scooping them up. This sand is way too fine I don’t know anything that you could use it for. Not to mention that I put it in four tanks, the others have Fiji pink, the tanks with this sand after about three days everything including silk plants were getting a biofilm on them.

I would have been better off staying with the gravel or waiting for more bags of the other.

I’ve been using this sand for over 10 years and I just love love love it. The fish love it too, they swift and burrow into it naturally. The water chemistry is stable. It looks so awesome too, just like going to the beach.

VERY IMPORTANT!!! YOU MUST RINSE THIS SAND. I used it directly in the tank and the water was so cloudy. The filters could not clear it. I had to discard 60 gallons of water. I put about 5 lbs of sand in a bucket and stirred it with faucet water and dumped the cloudy water, I repeated this until all the sand was clear.

Then put it in the tank and the water was spectacularly clearer. If your are concerned about removing the bacteria, you can easily buy biological bacteria and add it. This is how I did it and it worked perfectly.

The fish are happy and so am I.

Why am I happy? (7 months in) I’ve previously had mixed size arag which was always switching from fine sand on top after syphoning to all the chunky pieces sifting up the rest of the time (I like the white sand look).

And I’ve had gobies actually get bigger pieces stuck in their mouths with the old sand. With the consistency of the special grade, I’ve seen my wrasses going in and out, and my nassarius snails seem happy submerging and surfacing.

A previous tank had pests, so this time I went for a sterile dry rock/dry sand start to avoid potential pests in live ocean sand (and I’ve quarantined EVERYTHING – corals, fish, inverts, chaeto. – so far, so good) I only have one eco-tech MP 40, but even when I crank it up to test, this sand doesn’t blow around in my 120.

Very happy with this choice.

I bought two bags of this for my new 180. I “prepped” the sand by dividing it between three 5-gallon buckets and then topping it off with RODI. I agitated the sand, drained off the cloudy RODI, and then refilled with RODI once a week for 2-3 months before adding it to my tank.

This was worth it as it really reduced the cloudiness. I have two MP60’s on each end, and two MP40’s on the back wall (all set to 70% Reef Crest) and I get minimal sand movement (sand bed is about 1-1.

5″). this stuff sticks together pretty well. Very glad this is the sand I chose.

I found this to be ideal size for my flow. It looks good and does not blow around a lot. It is very dirty so needs good washout in 5 gallon bucket. The picture really is bad making it look to have a lot bigger chunks than it does.

FYI. The calculators told me 120 lbs in 125 gallon tank would be just under 2 inches but mine is just over 3 inches.

Don’t listen to Dbwhit about this being larger size sand. This is very fine blow around your tank size sand. Very fine. Looks like sugar. It is really nice looking sand but it really for low flow tanks.

Most saltwater reef tanks are high flow so don’t buy this if that is what you need it for.

The sand is a mixture of small shells and white sand. It looks very nice if thats what you’re looking for. The water does get cloudy after you first add the sand but this happens with pretty much any sand you get.

It was well packaged with no leaks and came with a good amount of water in the bag for the bacteria.

It’s amazing to say the least. Not only is the color bright, vibrant, but it is not over the top. It displays gorgeous pink which reflects great on the rest of your tanks community, especially pink feather dusters, ultra green gonis, and trumpet corals look amazing paired with this sand as the substrate, cough cough but what wouldn’t?:) To add, this sand has millions of beneficial bacteria, allowing for immediate introduction of fish with the use of natures ocean sea water.

This company is my go to for all my water and sand needs. I purchased 40lbs for a 30 gallon acrylic show. Nature’s ocean baby! Pictures just don’t do the justice as having this beautiful and in person!.

I bought 2 40lb bags for use in setting up a new 100-gallon tank. Definitely cloudy mess the first 24 hours but has cleared up significantly. The sand is a nice texture with a few shells. Be sure to check for ammonia after adding.

I had a slight rise in ammonia to about. 5 ppm after adding, which is fine since I’m just starting my cycle. My wife and I also searched and searched for the package of “Bio Magnet” that the package says is included.

We couldn’t find it in either bag. I’m assuming it’s a flocculant of some kind. In any event, I removed my filter socks and used a dual canister (RO canisters) filter on with 2, 10-inch, 5-micron sediment filters.

I ran a pump in the sump through the dual canisters with the return back to the sump. Water is crystal clear now and I’ll be removing the ad-hoc filter today.

With lights off, add half the intended sand, rock, and your choice of tank cycle. After the cycle, add copepods and some food for them. After a couple weeks, turn on the lights. After a couple more weeks, remove all of the sand.

Now, you can either run the tank as bare-bottom, or with sand. I use a super shallow sand band with a conch that keeps it stirred very well. This smaller grade sand with bacteria is perfect for that.

Tank is 2 feet deep with powerheads midway, so sand does not blow everywhere; However, there is enough flow on the Ecotech that is sucks any detritus up from the sand to blow back towards the overflow.

Couldnt tell if the short term haze was sand or bacterial. Either way, I expected it and after a few days it went away. I also used the two packets for clarifying the water. No complaints about the initial startup haze.

It should be expected. The sand is exactly as advertised and my daughter loves finding all the little shells mixed within. May have found close to 25 shells per 40lb bag. My tank is cycling quickly and I have not added any other cycling products to the tank.

Just the sand and used dry rock. I will use this product again for future tanks.

Super start for Reef Tanks. Great item for [email protected] Chewy ! This is a super way to jump start your Saltwater Tank. Using this Carib Sea Aragonite material builds great bio-DBS tank floor. With a jump start micro bacteria liquid this is a good way to get fish in your tank in a week or two.

Best bang for your buck without doubt. Great for saltwater/reef aquariums. The bag is huge and you will be glad you went with this grade of sand. Looks great, and does not blow around unless you have a high rate of flow going through your tank.

This product is very fine and good size I was not confident about product before I buy but it arrived super quick I ordered it day before at evening time and it arrived next morning with in like 18 hours.

And the product good I love it my reef tank love it.

I do like this substrate, but the description should be corrected. I require specific sized grains for my use (not aquariums), and this is not the 0. 25-1mm as in the description. As you can see in the images I uploaded (centimeter side of ruler), the grains are more like 2-4mm on average.

An occasional piece reaches 5mm, but not much more. An estimated 2-3% fell through a 1mm seive. There was minimal organic debris that was easy to wash out (floated) after 3-4× rinsing, less than 1/2 teaspoon in a 5lb bag.

No significant dust or odor that I noted. I can still use this substrate for a slightly different purpose and am not unhappy with it, but the description is misleading. **Either uploaded images do not appear in previews of posts or I am unable to post a photo, either in the app or on the website, despite photo meeting size requirements.

Hello everyone, This sand is easily the best quality sand I have ever used. If applied properly there will be absolutely no water cloudiness, No air bubbles, and the sand is a great soft quality. I have purchased sand from other chain stores, which gave me doubt of buying more sand.

I’m so glad I found this sand. I do recommend pouring the water in a bowl to not mix up the sand with the water. ALL of my fish love laying/playing in the sand. I received great customer service and fast shipping.

I now only use Chewy to purchase items for my aquatic friends. I have this sand in four tanks currently and have a 85 gallon that I am trying to set up with it. (the water coloring is from tannins from the drift wood, I currently only have betta tanks lol) You should really try this sand!!!.

This substrate is beautiful and natural looking. I changed from regular gravel to this substrate. It is thicker than sand but thinner than the painted fish aquarium gravel you can buy at big chain stores.

It is heavy enough to vacuum without sucking up a bunch. It is light enough for natural roots if you choose to plant live plants. The fish love it. Most of all, the water clears up in no time as compared to 3 weeks of the colored gravel still causing the water to be cloudy.

This is a fantastic product and there are many different color selections to choose from. It also came very quickly. I did rinse the product pretty good just because I was already fighting cloudy water from the other stuff.

Overall, I love this stuff!!!.

This was my second time setting up a new aquarium that I needed live sand for. Brick and mortar stores local to me are very expensive. After a little research, I found Chewy, and was able to purchase almost 4 times the amount of sand as I could have gotten anywhere else.

Same for Sea salt. That commercial where the lady thinks she got such a good deal that she leaves the place saying, “start the car?” Yeah, that was me when I found Chewy.

I rinsed this substrate several time till it came clear then I dried it. When I finally put it in my tank it made it cloudy. The fine particles settled on the sides of my tank and and my algae after 24 hours.

Unfortunately, my tank is 1 gal and is not equipped with a filter. I wish I would have gone with the sand. At least my trumpet snails are still alive. I am still cycling prior to moving the shrimps in.

I am trying to to see if clarity improves with water change or should I redo my substrate.

A little background: I have 13 aquariums. 4 are 4-5 gallon betta tanks and the rest range from 10 gallons to 75 gallons. 1 is a salt FOWLR tank. All the freshwater tanks but 1 have live plants. I keep mostly bettas, livebearers and bottom feeders.

In my 10 gallon and smaller tanks I started having a problem with pH crashes, despite light stocking levels, twice a month water changes and more than adequate air and filtration. The water could go from 7.

2 out of the tap to 6. 0 in a matter of days. I used Amquel Plus as my water conditioner. I performed a controlled week long experiment and identified the Amquel as the culprit. I started adding the Carib Sea Aragonite to my substrate, anywhere from 25% to 75% depending on the tank’s propensity to run acid.

This stuff is amazing! It keeps my tanks at stable levels between 6. 8 and 7. 2. My area has hard water–typically around 150 ppm total hardness out of the tap and I haven’t found that the Carib Sea adds to that appreciably.

The granules are large enough that my Python siphon doesn’t suck them up, and they’re smooth enough for cory catfish. I run a canister filter with a reverse flow UGF on my FOWLR and I don’t end up with lots of substrate in my canister, which would happen with sand.

Great stuff!!!.

Covered the entire floor of my 35 or 38 gal tank a bit thin on the edges though depending on how you spread the sand out. Definitely need to give it a very good and more than 10 minute rinse before you put it in your tank.

Also weird debris stuff came out during the rinse. almost like wood splinters maybe. Its gone after a good rinse. If you don’t wash the sand first it will cloud up your tank for a couple days or more.

Its pretty and brightens up the tank. Its not as thin/fine as I was hoping. I’d say that each sand particle is about 1 cm or less. And for those of you wondering, if you use a siphon hose, just like with pebbles it will be picked up but spit back out.

This gravel is really small but definitely gravel NOT sand. It’s exactly what we wanted. We didn’t want a large gravel to hold ammonia. Our goldfish love to pick through it much like parrot fish on a reef.

It did take a week for the cloudiness to go away. Not sure if part of the problem was our Penguin hang-on-back filter – could have been. We tried the product that came with the gravel (a real bonus!) as well as another product.

But I think mostly it took some time. Not a big deal though. It was definitely worth the process. There is quite a bit of white rock mixed in with the black (probably 85%/15% black/white). Looks really nice.

I’d buy it again and probably will for another larger tank.

Great looking substrate and if true about it’s porous nature I expect the plants should root and grow better (too early to tell) Only 4 stars because ‘this product is pre cleaned but may still need a rinse due to the product unsettling during transit’ or something to that effect is the quote of the manufacturer MAY need a rinse.

A LITTLE dust!!! Holy hell. I rinsed the hell out of it before adding to the tank and I’m glad there was no fish in the tank, it became so turbid you couldn’t see 2cm inside the tank glass. Aside from that looks good which you get the dust out (hell of a challenge).

Exceptional Performance. Great Quality. Looks Good in my 75 gallon tank. Clown Loaches colors are great contrast. The Kuhli family is having fun burrowing in and out.

Using this in my 55 gal tank. It will cloud the heck out of the water at first, so give it a super good rinse before adding it. Its a bit heavier than regular gravel and it fits together more compact and really holds your live plants in place.

Looks wonderful and natural. Color-wise, its a mix of browns with a few specks of lighter colors. Not super dark like the black version but still lets your plants and fish stand out well against it. I have 2 bags in my tank already but may need a third.

First and foremost I love the look of the sand. The sand is mostly black with some white mixed into it. I purchased 3 bags for my 55 gallon and it gave me a nice fill. I had already had two seeded media filters and let them run for approximately 2 weeks after adding the sand.

I purchased 6 Yellow Labs which look amazing against the black sand. The fish seem very happy. I’m currently waiting to get 12 or so Demasoni to finish the tank off. My tank was cloudy for maybe the first day but I added all three clarity packs.

The sand has a distinctive odor to it which is not too pleasant but I attribute that to the bacteria that’s in the sand. I did not wash the sand and followed the advice on the bag. I would buy again.

Also pictured are the cichlid stones (15 pack).

I didn’t like my old gravel which I had in my 55 gallon tank that housed my cichlids. So I bought 60 lbs of caribsea cichlid substrate product (white sand) When it came, I noticed it said “do not rinse” I was very leary about that especially since it had water in the bags which didn’t look too clean, but followed directions anyhow.

I removed all my old gravel and replaced it with the new product. Filled up the tank and at first was really disappointed at the cloudiness, but after adding the clarity packs, it didn’t clear to crystal clear, but it cleared and the next day it was crystal clear.

That made me very happy. The cichlids loved it even more and began “housekeeping” right away. The nerite snails love it as well. It looks very natural and I have received many compliments already! I can always trust Foster & Smith’s aquarium products and have been buying from them for a long time and will continue.

I love their LiveAquaria as well. My fishes always arrive alive and STAY alive! Thank you Foster & Smith for all you do!.

I use this substrate for my Molly tank. Brooklyn NY water is 6. 7 p. h out of the tap but the sand has maintained the ph at 8, and my fish seem very happy and healthy. They spend a lot of time sifting through the sand looking for snacks.

It looks beautiful and does not get sucked up during light vacuuming. Initially, the water was very cloudy for two days with a filter running. I would not want to add this to an established tank. I’m currently cycling a filter for a rabbit snail habitat and will purchase this substrate for them.

The high PH, shell pieces and small size of the sand should make for very happy rabbit snails.

Package said do not rinse due to live bacteria. So I didn’t rinse and wow did it cloud my water, for days! Plus the gravel size was very inconsistent. The only reason I didn’t give it one star is because the material was authentic ocean material.

This product used in a friends new set up. Have used live sand myself. Should never, ever rinse live substrate. Hello. ‘Live’ stuff gets washed down drain. Loss of money.

I use this in my reef tank. It provides a good, natural sand bed. Good particles, not overly fine and not huge. Just rinse it well before you add it to the tank that way you reduce the cloudiness. After about a day, the cloudiness you get is gone.

Nice looking sand.

We picked this out for my daughter‘s tank because it’s bright white. I noticed it didn’t say the word ‘sand’ anywhere on the bag, or say what was in the bag , but we bought it anyway. I’ve had many fishtanks before and we were going to use this as the top layer in a dirt floor tank.

After washing it for 20 minutes my daughter thought it looked gross because it kept having dust come out of it creating dust bubbles. I then belatedly researched it before putting it in our tank, and realized it is gross! This is an unknown mineral byproduct, It is not sand.

The reason the bag doesn’t say sand on it is because sand actually has a definition. We switched to a bag of construction sand we happened to have in the basement, which washed clear in a few minutes and looks great.

The difference between real sand and this stuff is actually surprisingly big. If you read the other reviews of it, it’s shocking Petco actually sells the stuff. If we had a local aquarium store in our town I’d be going to it!.

The Imagitarium Nutmeg Aquarium Gravel that I bought was made up of not too small and not to large bits of gravel. it is close to the coarseness/fineness ratio that I am looking for. I would like a finer and more uniform gravel, such as used to be easily available when I kept aquariums many years ago, but I don’t see it for sale anywhere.

The warm closer is nice. I would prefer something more neutral. I read ads for gravel before purchasing. The gravel I purchased on line was coarser than I wanted but usable. I saw Imagitarium Nutmeg Aquarium Gravel in the Union Square Petco and it looked closer to what I wanted.

It is okay. I find it impossible to judge the coarseness of gravel from photos in on-line ads.

I was setting up a betta tank with this and it caused me so much stress. My water comes from a well and the ph is a constant of 7. 4. I was about to go to petco to buy a betta (DON’T fish in cycle unless you know what you’re doing or have a nice bottle of prime, beneficial bacteria and api master test kit) and tested the parameters one more time before leaving my house.

Over the course of two days my ph had gone up to 8. 4. My first suspicion was my root tabs. I had to turn my substrate over to find them and finally remove them. When that didn’t work I took out my “betta bulbs” which honestly deserve another review because those things rot and grow biofilm over them every single time I’ve used them.

Eventually I resorted to asking facebook and someone suggested seeing if anyone else had had an issue with the same substrate. After looking at them it’s pretty certain that this is what raised my ph (Only other decor i had in the tank were a small java fern and spider wood).

Don’t get this unless you know and are aware of what it will do to your ph.