Can I use Home Depot's pea gravel in my tank? I bought some Home Depot Play Sand, but I'm sick of rinsing it! It's taken FOREVER!! So I'm thinking about returning the 50lbs I still have in a bag and getting pea gravel instead. Anyone used it?

play sand is the hardest of the types of sand i have tried. personlaly i found the best results with mortar sand (the sand they use to brick houses with). it cleans easy is rounded not sharp and is really inexpensive($5 for 100lbs)


i got mine at our local masonary store.....

another option for sand is the silica sand used in swimming pool filters. this is the easiest to clean and is still affordable.

We don't have any masonry supply stores here, and since it's a small coastal town in Oregon - no one carries pool sand either. So that's why I went with play sand.

I just wanna know if the pea gravel from Home Depot is safe to use, because it'll be a hell of a lot easier to rinse it off and mix with the sand than trying to rinse out another 50lbs of sand.

Not sure about the pea gravel (never used it) but if you bought play sand from Home Depot then you can definately get pool filter sand from there too

ksls wrote:


Nope, they don't carry it. =( The Quikrete website says that I can use their pea gravel for ponds or aquariums. So since there are no fish in the tank yet I may just go buy a bag and see what happens. Test the water everyday and hope for the best I suppose.

It will work fine Hun!! I bought the same thing from a local block company... Mine came home in 5 gallon buckets rather than plastic bags~!

Jenni wrote:
yes you can....
the only difference with pea gravel or pebbles that are being sold by petmart was
the cleaning and treatment... both came from the same source. thus, a good cleaning
before putting them in the tank will give you same benefit.

Thanks ya'll!

Bought the rock, got it all rinsed and poured in the tank, now I'm gonna fill it and vacuum some more. When we're done I'll post pics.

Here's some pics!



This is what I did with the sand and gravel. I've got filters on it cycling right now, and in the next few days I'll throw in the decor from the O tank, and hopefully it'll be ready in a couple weeks!