Carib Sea ACS00821 Tahitian Moon Sand for Aquarium, 20-Pound, Black

I absolutely love this sand! These pictures are the third day after putting in the sand and upgrading my Bettas, Sonny and Fredo, to their new penthouses. It was crystal clear the day I put it in.....no cloudiness. If people are having cloud issues it's probably because you followed the directions on the package to wash the sand. Never in my life would I wash sand so poorly. Split the package up between two buckets. Using your sink or a hose, let the water run and overflow. Swish the sand around with your hand, let it overflow. Repeat this process until there's no more filth coming up. I spent 15-20 minutes on each 10 pound bucket full. I didn't have even the slightest bit of cloudiness. By the way, I have 5 pounds I'd sand in each of these 5 gallon tanks. This is how I've done all my sand tanks and I've never had a problem. Other than their cleaning instructions this is an easy 5 stars. The sand is heavy so I can fiddle with stuff and not worry about bits floating all over. It has a beautiful velvety look to it. It easily holds down my live plants. The Bettas love it because it's soft. Fredo, though he's a Betta, is a bottom dweller. He loves laying out on this sand. I highly recommend!

I switched from gravel to this sand a few months ago and I wasn't sure how it would work out having been warned that sand was a hot mess - difficult to keep clean and a hassle to keep stirred. I loved the black sand look so much I made the switch anyway and I've been waiting for months for problems but this black sand bottom is still just as pristine and beautiful as the first day with some help from Malaysian Trumpet Snails and a little herd of mixed Corys! Really it's much easier to clean than the gravel because the poop and debris sit on top and can easily be removed. I have a couple live plants that I admit do not stay planted very well but most of my plants are tied to Mopani logs anyway so I just pin down the loose plants with a decorative stone and it works fine. Most of the credit for cleaning has to go to the MTS colony, they a cleaning powerhouses who live in the sand only coming out at night to clean the surface of the sand, during the day they burrow keeping the sand from compacting. The first bag required more rinsing that the second, no idea why but it had so much more weird oily silt stuff but I had to scrub and rinse repeat 5 or 6 times per bucket with the 1st bag but the 2nd bag added a few days ago was very clean and just needed a swishing and it was good to go. BTW Dawn will get the oily stuff off your hands no problem, other soaps didn't work as well.

Update to my initial review below: I liked how pretty the black sand looks. It makes everything else really look great with the contrast against the black. I decided to order more for 2 other tanks I am setting up. I have raised my initial score of 3 stars to 4 stars. I still cannot give it 5 stars, because they should wash the sand better before packageing it for sale. The reason I raised my score to 4 is that I found a way that made it much easier to clean. For the first batch and this one I used the same technique of pouring it into a 5 gallon bucket, stirring it, pouring off the dirty water, and repeating. The difference with my second batch that made a BIG difference is that I used very hot tap water for the first two rinses. I filled another 5 gallon bucket with hot tap water from the bathtub and poured onto the sand. The first rinse removed almost all of the greasy film that had annoyed me with my first batch of the sand. The second rinse had almost no greasy film on top of the water. I then rinsed it one final time in cold water, because the water from water heater has too high a level of dissolved minerals from those that have collected in the heater over time. With my first batch I bought, I was washing it with water from a garden hose during winter, so the water was very cold. While using hot water for the 2 rinses removed all of the greasy film on the sand, it does still have a lot of very fine "dust" particles that cloud the water for some days after it is first added to a tank. I do not know how many rinses would be required to get rid of the suspended black dust. I would not recommend adding this sand to a tank that already has fish in it, without first moving the fish to another tank temporarily for a few days. I cannot say for certain that the cloudy water for a few days would harm fish, but I wouldn't want to risk it. I'm always heartbroken when one of my fish dies. After a week the suspended small particles eventually settled in my first tank and have not been an issue since. Even when I"ve moved some plants, the sand settles down quickly without leaving the dusty black particles that filled the water when I first set it up. The sand's light weight and smooth texture have worked great for plants. The plants in my tank are Jungle Vallisneria and Aponogeton Ulvaceus, and their roots are quickly spreading in the sand to suck up nutrients from fish poo. I've alway used natural pea gravel in tanks for many years, but I'm now sold on this black sand. ------------------------------------ Original review of the product ------------------------------------ This sand is a beautiful dark black. Its texture is soft and not sharp, so it is a great substrate for small bottom feeders such as Pygmy Cory Cats that I plan to have in the tank. I would only use this sand for new set ups without fish, because it is messy. The instructions say to wash thoroughly, just as most aquarium substrates suggest, but with this sand it should be in ALL CAPS. I washed the sand for what seems like hours trying to get rid of the greasy black residue, but no amount of washing seemed to reduce the amount of oily black gunk in the rinse water. I would have given this product 5 stars if it was better washed before packaging. I not talking about a bit of dusty debris as you get with most aquarium gravel - this stuff is greasy and dirty. Mid way through trying to wash this sand, I thought, "So this is what BP did with all of mess they cleaned from Gulf beaches after the Deepwater Horizon oil spill." Don't try to wash this sand in your sink or tub, because the gunk that washes off will stain your tub, sink, hands, and everything is contacts. I was outside on my patio, and it caused a big black stain on the concrete before I realized it. The bag includes a package of flocculent to help the particles in the aquarium water to clump together so your filter can clear the water, but it wasn't nearly enough. I am using one 25 pound bag for a half inch substrate layer in a 55 gallon freshwater tank. After 3 days running a high flow power head with a Hydro Sponge filter, the water was still gray and dirty looking. It was so cloudy I could not see the back of the tank. I bought more flocculent, "Tetra Cloudy Water Clarifier", to use. The recommended dose had helped some after another 24 hours of filtration. I then added 3 times the recommended dose of the Tetra Water Clarifier, and after a week of filtration, the water was finally clear. Once the water was clear, there was still an oily black film on the water's surface. Using power towels, I was able to clean most of this greasy film from the water's surface. I've add some plants and am waiting for another few weeks for the tank's bacteria to cycle and get established before adding fish. I can't imagine the effect the sand's gunge would have on fish without the time to clear out this mess first. When reading on aquarium websites, many people recommended "Black Diamond" sand blasting grit as a much cheaper alternative to this sand. Most people said it was almost the same and much cheaper, but that it required more washing. I bought this sand because the Black Diamond is made from coal grit and has some oily residue that must be washed thoroughly. After my experience with this sand, I wonder if in fact it might be made from the same coal grit as the Black Diamond sand blasting grit. Others in the past have said that this sand was much cleaner, which makes me wonder if the company has started skimping on cleaning it to reduce their production costs. My 55 gallon tank has some large rocks that are gray slate. The contrast of the gray slate sitting on the black sand is beautiful! It was worth the work to get the look I wanted, but I'm glad that I didn't have fish in the tank already. I'm planning to stock the tank with Neon Tetras and Pygmy Cory Cats. The Neon Tetras should look wonderful against the black, and the sand is the perfect texture for the Cory Cats to feed and play in. While full sized Cory Cats can cope with small gravel substrate, the 1 inch Pygmy Cats do much better with a smooth sand like this one. The large school of these little silver colored fellows playing should also be pretty contrasted against the black sand.

I bought 20 lbs for my new 29-gallon tank. At that shallow depth, I had to anchor a couple of artificial plants with small stones at their base but that's okay as that just adds to the decor. The sand is super soft and and I only had to rinse it once before adding. Directions with my Whisper filter says not to use with sand but it hasn't been a problem. When cleaning, I rotate the vacuum tube a couple of inches above the sand so I scoop up only the tiniest bit. The black against the green plants, the blue background, and my gold comet make a beautiful contrast. Doesn't seem to bother the fish although when he first went into the tank, I saw him spit some out. I would definitely recommend this over gravel.

Lo utilice para mi ajolote y es perfecto. Negro mate en su totalidad. Solo la Bolsa venía abierta pero el paquete retuvo todo el contenido.

The product is great. It feels really nice and the color is beautiful. I only gave it 4 stars due to the shape The bags were in when received. I had 2 x 20lb bags and they were just thrown in a box with nothing to keep them in place and no "handle with care" on the box. When I pulled the box into my apartment, I noticed it was leaking sand all over the floor. When I opened the box, BOTH BAGS WERE SPLIT OPEN!! I have no idea how much sand I'm missing and at $40 a bag, I expected better.

I washed thoroughly this sand when I got it, Put it in a 70 gallon tank, added two large long time established aquaclear filters as well as 3 large established sponge filters, put my couple large angels and a few catfish in the aquarium and the ammonia spiked immediately and it has been 4 weeks and it has not come down at all, fish are now dead, I did partial water changes every other day, added cycle, ammonia removers in the filters and used seachem safe to try to keep ammonia levels down. When I drained the water out of the tank the gravel had a strong smell of pinesol and the aquarium had a thick white residue on the tubing and fake plants. Now that I have stripped the tank and added gravel there has not been ammonia present since. Found many other reviews of people having this issue with the sand and it cleared up as soon as the sand was removed.