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Colored sand

F

fred

Guest
I have seen it mentioned on several other threads but never seen a link. Do they sell sand in a bright blue/blue colour? I think that would look great with a melanoid and a golden albino axie!
biggrin.gif
 
C

cynthia

Guest
I have not seen colored sand for fresh water tanks. I do see colored sand for salt water tanks its like powdered sugar it is so fine grain.

Carib sea makes white and black for fresh water and there is the el natural sand you can get at places like Home Depot.

I did just find something interesting though that I wanted to ask here to see what everyone thought.

These links go to fish forums and other pages about a new product that 3M makes, its ground
quarts for pools and spas. People have started using it in aquariums and it comes in lots of nice colors.

http://authoring.3m.com/cms/US/en/2-125/FkcFiFO/view.jhtml

http://www.polymertec.com/cqs.html

http://66.102.7.104/search?q=cache:DBE0Kg1ADxUJ:www.cichlid-forum.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php%3Ft%3D43290+%22+3M+Color+Quartz%22+aquarium&hl=en

http://66.102.7.104/search?q=cache:XhRTVW2sMG8J:www.dmm1.com/cgi-bin/ikonboard/topic.cgi%3Fforum%3D1%26topic%3D938+%22+3M+Color+Quartz%22+aquarium&hl=en

There are a lot more people talking about in fish forums ... go to google and search with : " 3M Color Quartz" aquarium
use the quotes.



What does everyone/anyone? think of this product for axolotl tanks?




(Message edited by cynorita on June 24, 2005)
 
F

fred

Guest
I couldn't find it on home depot or lowe's sites, could you post a link to where it is sold, or a dealer locator?
 
C

cynthia

Guest
Fred - Did you mean just the play sand or the 3M color quartz?
 
C

cynthia

Guest
You would have to call the 3M company and ask them where you could purchase some their # is 1-800-447-2914 .
 
B

brian

Guest
Standard aquarium gravel is usually quartz or a similar material. The sand you are talking about will be completely safe.
 
N

nathan

Guest
Hey Anne-Marie I think that Fred is talking about eagles when he says blue sand and gold albino. Anyone who is not familiar with AFL (Australian football league) don’t worry
 
C

cynthia

Guest
I emailed 3M and got this replay today.

Thank you for contacting 3M regarding the 3M(TM) Colorquartz(TM)
Ceramic-Coated Crystals. We appreciate hearing from you.

Colorquartz(TM) are ceramic coated crystals and they will not leach chemicals or contaminate water. They are safe for use in freshwater aquariums.

Regards,

Sandy
3M Industrial Minerals
www.3m.com/pools
1-800-447-2914


You can go to this page and scroll down to see the color choices. http://cms.3m.com/cms/US/en/2-125/cFiukFQ/view.jhtml

(Message edited by cynorita on June 24, 2005)
 
C

cynthia

Guest
Yes the colors are nice. I am going to see if I can get them to send me a sample of each size (S,T). I think we would want T as it is the larger of the two.

The colors appear to be more limited in the T size. These pictures are from their files on the site.

38273.gif


38274.jpg
 
H

halszka

Guest
I'm loving that black sand and how bright is that blue? It would look awesome with some brightly coloured silk or plastic decorations.
 
C

cynthia

Guest
In the fish forums they said this stuff was cheaper than the carib sea black and white sand, so that is a bonus. It comes in 50 pound bags which should be about right for a 30 to 55 gallon tank.

I think I am going to try to find this for my "baby" axolotls tank.
 
R

rheann

Guest
Ok, now i see this post lol. Darn, i am so observant lol. I have the black sand now, I really like the brown sand at the top left corner and the blue sand in the bottom right. Pet's mart also sells colored sand, they have purple, black, white, and blue from what I have seen. I have also seen a redish sand, it's natural though like the black and white, it hasn't been dyed. If you live near a pet's mart, Fred, you could try there, but you best bet might be what the posts here recommend
happy.gif
Someone really should take a whole bunch of different colors and make a sand art designe in their tank, then have a thick layer of a solid color so the sand art doesn't get distirbed, or too disturbed. If anyone does this, post pics. I won't do it in my tank, but I would like to see it done :p
 
C

cynthia

Guest
I bought a bag of the white in Grade S. When I called they said the Grade T isn't any bigger it is just a different shape. The S is round and the T is shaped like rice. So since they didn't have white in T I purchased S.

It is larger granules than the tahitian moon sand so I am hoping it doesn't suck up in the vacuum as easy.

I will post a review about it after I have added it to the tank and cleaned it a few times.
 
C

cynthia

Guest
The 3M color quartz testing is looking very good so far. I purchased white, it is an off white and no where near as bright white as the carib sea white sand. Still an attractive substrate and it looks more like "normal sand" in that it is larger than carib sea.

Test tank: 20 gallon long, no heater, 1 large sponge filter, 1 penguin 170 filter, no lights, a few residual snails are its only inhabitants.

I poured about 20 pounds of the substrate into my test tank without rinsing. (I had read on one of the fish message boards that the color quartz doesn't need rinsed, so I am testing that as well. I have a diatom filter to clear the tank with if it doesn't clear on its own.) The water was very cloudy for about 21 hours at 24 hours it was pretty clear. 36 hours and the cloudiness is barely noticeable.

I used the water python on it to see if it sucked up as easy as the carib sea sand does. It does not. It vacuumed very nicely, I could stick the gravel vac tube clear to the glass bottom of the tank and pull it back slowly without sucking up the color quartz.

Since I recently removed the aquarium gravel from this tank there was a lot of the "brown fluffy stuff" that had settled on top of the sand. I did have to use my faithful pen plax battery operated vacuum to clean that up.

I will post more on the test later. I am waiting for a new filter to arrive for this tank. I am going to try the Aquarium Pharmaceuticals RENA Filstar XP 1 Canister Filter so I can compare it to the Fluval 204 canister filter that I really like.
 
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