Carib Sea ACS05820 Super Natural Moonlight Sand for Aquarium, 5-Pound

Incredible sand, but you MUST know details for results.
This sand is absolutely beautiful. My Rabbit snails enjoy digging and they love it. Add a mid-high value lighting and it will literally sparkle/shine and become the centerpiece for any room. As a plus, if you have aquatic plants, they will be very very happy in this substrate. But you may have to anchor them for a few weeks/months for their roots to catch on.However, you need to know details about your aquarium setup to bring out its true beauty and to manage it properly. If you are getting this sand because it “Looks pretty” and you think all there is to it is dumping it straight into the tank and doing nothing else, you are MISTAKEN.Don’t ignore this, I’m attempting to warn people because I couldn’t find a true detailed explanation in the reviews. I’m trying to save you money from ruining your filtration system, stressing your fish, and clouding your water. I’ll do my best to list details and instructions.1) First you must know this sand is very fine. This means, that if you have strong filtration/air pump in your tank. You may consistently disturb the sand at the bottom, and the fine sand will be pulled into your system, destroying it. Depending on what you need, this could be an expensive out-of-pocket expense emergency that you have to purchase or your fish will die. And that’s if you’re lucky enough to notice it’s broken, before it’s too late.2) You absolutely have to clean your sand before it is put into your aquarium, especially this one in particular. If you do not, you will have cloudy water for months. This will force you to empty your tank fully, clean it, and go back to Square-1. And/Or potentially harm your fish. I’ll leave a brief instruction on how to clean sand below.3) You may have heard that sand can be dangerous for fish. This is true, IF you do ZERO maintenance.Every few days/once per week, you need to “Rake” your fingers through the sand. Yes that means underneath the decorations as well. You could probably get away with doing it less, but if you want to eliminate the chance of a random insta-kill on your fish, do it often. I’ll try to keep this part brief, but when your fish create waste and bacteria, it will fall to the bottom of the tank. If you miss cleaning it, after awhile the bacteria can become trapped in air bubbles below the surface. As the weeks go by, this trapped bacteria will become more and more toxic. Until one day, some sand movement releases a bubble, popping the toxic bacteria into the water. Usually, this sudden high toxicity will be too much for a fish to handle at the rate your filter can clean it. And it will perish or get sick. Raking the sand often will release the trapped bubbles. Preventing them from becoming toxic.3) Clean your tank. It’s basic, I know but if you don’t know how often to clean it, look it up. Want the sand to look pretty? Clean your tank, but remember don’t keep it too clean. A little dirty is okay.Do all of these steps and you can ignore all of the negative reviews. This sand is grade A.That’s all I can really think of. Once again guys, I’m not here to preach to you, I’m just telling you how it is. And the truth is, most people don’t do their research and their aquatic creatures are unintentionally abused and being hurt. There are probably work-around’s for some of these that I don’t know about. And I may not be 100% accurate on my claims. All I’m trying to do is spread the word and get all of this confusing research out of the way. And organize it in one spot so you guys don’t have to put in the hours of studying like I did.I’m no expert, just a guy who love aquariums.INSTRUCTIONS ON HOW TO CLEAN SANDItems needed:Sand10-Gallon BucketGarden HoseA)Throw your sand in the bucket, only fill to about half maximum with sand. Shove the garden hose to the bottom-turn on full blast.B) As the water level rises above the sand, move the garden hose around the bottom and side-to-side until the bucket is full. Remove the hose, allow 5-10 seconds for the fine sand to settle.C) You will see murky water spinning around, carefully dump the water out. After awhile you will get better and better at this so that you will not spill any sand. Just be aware if some is being poured out or not.Repeat this process for about 20-30 minutes (yeah I know it’s a long time) until your water is crystal clear. Take care of your back when doing this by the way. If it hurts take a break or stretch.Thanks for reading if you made it this far. Good luck to you guys and please have a wonderful day 🙂

Natural sand great for your fish! UPDATE
I wanted to add sand to two aquariums that had rocks in one and gravel in the other and my albino cory doras had no sand! They love sand and sand doesn’t injure their little barbells and whiskers so I just added it in the front and created like a sand bar for them. I wanted a nice white sand and this came looking brown. I set it up for a return but decided to use it as my little Cory’s really needed it so I canceled the return and I’m so glad I did. Once it’s cleaned and in the tank it looks really light and pretty and natural. I cleaned it for days before putting it gently where I wanted it, using a tiny glass and filling it up with the cleaned wet sand and slowly pouring it where I wanted it, not from the top of the aquarium but down at the bottom where you want to place it. It worked fabulously, didn’t cloud the water at all and the sand gently falls where you want it. Very nice. Just rinse the heck out of it first. I soaked it for at least 24 hours too with treated water. UPDATE: So I purchased it again, only this time I got white sand. White like White Sands, New Mexico white. So I layered it on top of whatever color I got the first time. Love it! I think maybe I got the natural moonlight gold or something the first time? I ordered the same moonlight sand both times so IDK what the name of the first bag is now but they are both really nice. I have photos of both the first moonlight sand I got and then the re purchased moonlight sand.

LOVEEE
I bought this for my axolotls 10g tank and it looks great, I haven’t had any issues with her ingesting it or having any reaction, it’s a great quality for a great price.

Nice clean sand, looks great

Nice sand I ordered it in black but received white but still happy with the product