# black beauty sand ok?? plz help



## usmc-walker (Oct 3, 2010)

i will soon be setting up my 90G tank and would really like to use black beauty blasting sand for the substrate because its about 11$ for 50 Lbs instead of supernaturals 20$ for 20Lbs so my question is has anyone had any problems directly related to using this in their aquarium. also what is a root tab??? just got into live plants and would like to have a few in the new tank, new tank will have an eggcrate base with rock arches and driftwood, then the sand around all of that so wondering what a plant tab is used for thanks guys


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## susankat (Nov 15, 2008)

If you look at the tank in my sig. it has black beauty blasting sand. We get ours a little cheaper though as its 80 lb bag for 12.00

Root tabs are a fertilizer that is placed in the sand or gravel under the plants to help give it nutrients.

I don't know if I would use egg crate in a planted tank as it can inhibit root growth. Good for cichlid tanks though that require rocks to make lots of caves to distribute the weight of the rock on it instead of the glass.


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## usmc-walker (Oct 3, 2010)

and no problems with the substrate at all? just curious i have seen alot of posts that say it is fine but have seen 1 or 2 of people claiming that the sharpness can hurt plant roots and fish, think it would be ok for cory's, ya i am putting rock in the tank and would like to disperse the weight a little the substrate is going to be pretty deep so i dunno. its not going to be very heavily planted though.


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## susankat (Nov 15, 2008)

If you looked at the last picture, it hasn't hurt my plants at all. I have 14 cories in there and have no problem with them so far.


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## usmc-walker (Oct 3, 2010)

sounds good its mostly the money thing for me being in the military with a baby on the way i cant just go around buying 10 somthing odd 20$ bags of sand haha well thank you so much for the input and if you wanna follow the thread project i should be starting it in about a week, so feel free to throw any suggestions my way.


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## susankat (Nov 15, 2008)

Looking forward to it


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## usmc-walker (Oct 3, 2010)

will have plenty of pics along the way


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## Scuff (Aug 10, 2010)

I think sand gets a bad rap for being a pain in the butt to utilize. It's no harder to maintain than gravel, it just requires different tactics. If anything, it's easier to maintain than a gravel bed. Less gravel vaccing!


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## usmc-walker (Oct 3, 2010)

ya i know i use sand already but looking to find sand for my 90G and dont wanna buy that much more "supernaturals substrate" at 20$ a bag


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