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

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 :)

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.

I have used this sand exclusively for years to My Aquasol in all of my planted freshwater tanks. It is beautiful easy to clean, if you are delicate with your gravel vacuum. Just gently swirl with little pressure and all the poop and uneaten food sucked right up. When I first started using this years ago, I followed the instructions about putting it in a bucket and rinsing and rinsing rinsing and I lost so much sand that way. What I’ve had great success with for the past couple years is Turning off the filter to decrease water flow, putting it in a very very very clean soda bottle that is empty with a funnel. Fillet 3/4 of the way up then gently let the water flow into it when you put it in your tank. Once the water is in it and it settles down a bit get real up close and personal to the areas in which you want to spread it. Gently gently shake it out into those areas and it covers beautifully. The water clarifier in the bed works well butIt will take a couple of days to be crystal clear again. After it is spread out on the bottom of your tank wait five minutes and then turn your filter back on again. I have never lost a filter or fish using this method. Highly rated smooth beautiful sand. It is the finest sand I’ve ever felt it feels almost like silk in your fingers.

Sand covers lightly a cross the bottom of a 10 gal. I would've like to have at least another bag for good coverage. My tank cleared up really nicely with my Tetra filer. But not my sponge filter I was trying to goto. The sand never really settles to the bottom..its very fine and light. Its all over my plants and moss balls and decorations..its everywhere. When I go to clean it I know I will be sucking up a decent amount of sand. It sure is pretty tho.

If you are looking for a very fine grained white sand this is it. The complainers did not wash it correctly. My tank cleared up completely in a few hours.HOW TO WASH SAND. Put no more than 30 lbs in a 5 gallon plastic bucket. Home Depot has a bunch of them. Take it outside and fetch your garden hose. Do not put any sprayer attachments on the end. Turn it on full blast and begin to fill the bucket. When the water covers the sand begin pushing the end of the hose down into the sand all the way to the bottom. The water pressure will assist you. Continue to push it down to the bottom, then bring it up and move it a bit to the side. Try to stir from side to side a bit as well. When the bucket is full, remove the hose and drain the water carefully so as not to lose any sand. Continue to do this for a full THIRTY MINUTES at least. At this point the water should be clear. Your sand will be clean at this point.

The sand itself was exactly as expected. Gave it one rinse then added it to the tank; it was cloudy for a couple of hours but after letting the filter run for about 12 hours it was perfectly clear (it also comes with a water clearing solution, although I did not use it). The sand was slightly off-white, as other reviewers had mentioned, but lets be honest, its not going to stay white in any fish tank anyway so its okay that it's not paper white. I was surprised that my plants also did fairly well growing in this; I have an anacharis that nearly doubled in size within a month in this sand with no added fertilizers. One bag filled the entire bottom of my 13 gallon tank, however I ended up buying another 2 bags to have enough to have a decent layer as well as some hills and such. In future purchases I will probably not go with white substrate again since it is so difficult to keep clean, but that was no fault of the seller or the product.

To start off, I used half a bag in a 3.7 gallon tank. The sand is very fine which is exactly what I wanted but the sand comes looking white but after you add water to it, it turns to tan sand and I was looking for a pure white sand. Not to mention how dirty it comes. Even after spending awhile cleaning it, it’s still dirty in my tank. I’m glad I only bought the 5 pound bag.

I really like the color of the sand, and once its put in the tank and flattened it looks amazing, even without the tank light on it still sparkles at every angle. I didnt really mix the free clearing solution in that good because the instructions on the bag were a bit confusing, but once you put it in mix it really good for a few minutes in your water with the filter running and it does wonders. Helps tons very quickly. Highly recommend this product. I also used 1 bag for my 5.5 gal and it filled the bottom nicely, although i do want more since I will be adding live plants. A good thickness i would say is 1.5 of the 5 pound bags if you want a few hills and crevices. Will be adding a beta and ghost shrimp with my hang on back filter :)

I love Carib Sea sand and highly recommend it to anyone who is beginner and looking to start a tank, it's easy to clean & makes the tank look absolutely stunning and incredibly natural.Make sure you give it a good wash before using though, I recommend getting a bucket pouring the stand in there and then sliding the bucket under the tap water outside from a hose into the bucket or in the bath tub, the sand is heavy enough that it won't spill, and for five-twelve minutes "knead" the sand as if it is dough, after that it's ready to use.

It was what I wanted - perhaps the sand was not quite as white as a wanted (more like a very light tan) but there are so many shades of white that I was not disappointed. The bag was leaking sand into the box when it arrived so everything else in the box was sandy. I still cannot find the hole in the bag though - very strange. Not much was spilled and nothing else was damaged so I just poured the spilled sand into my container. The sand is very fine and very few "contaminants" of darker colored sand.

Nice clean sand, looks great

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

Very nice looking sand. I easy enough to work with