FlytrapCare Carnivorous Plant Forums

Hi would like to ask a question about the silica sand I bought today at a place that sells masoary and brick pavers.I have gotten it before and it was white/transparent in fine texure.This time I got coarse and its a little yellowish in color. The bag says its for pool filters sand blasting ex.Do you think it is ok to use with peat for vft? thanks

Could you put up a picture of the bag? What brand is it?

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heres the links to the pictures let me know if it works please if not i will find a different way to upload them

It didn't work, here's a way to upload pics
To put photos up, you must click "Post reply." Below the text box, it will have a couple tabs, Polls, Photo Upload, and something else. Click Photo Upload, and then pick the picture you want and upload it.
The way I prefer to upload photos is to host them on another website and then hotlink it to the forum. To do that, go to a hosting website, like imgur.com . Upload the photos there, and then copy the direct link. After you have it copied, create image brackets by clicking the "Img" button above the text box. This will appear: Paste the link into the brackets, so it's like this: Then it will show up on the post like this:

lets try this

I don't know if that will work. If you want to make it work repeatedly soak it overnight about 2-4 times and it should probably be fine

Ok what will soaking it do? thanks

Soaking the sand will remove minerals from it, making it good to use for CP's.

dantt99 wrote:I don't know if that will work. If you want to make it work repeatedly soak it overnight about 2-4 times and it should probably be fine

That's not necessarily true. The sand could be composed of minerals that are continuously and slowly released from it. Washing and soak the sand overnight a few times will not make it safe to use. No matter how many times you wash limestone sand, for example, it would never be safe to use in CP soil.

I can't say for sure if that's silica sand or not. Steve is much better at identifying it from photos than I am. It sure looks like it is to me, but I don't want to give you a wrong answer.

Is there anywhere on the bag that states something along the lines of "silica dust can be hazardous" or some other warning about silica? Sometimes bags of sand even have a list of minerals that make up the sand.

ON the bag all it gives me is the warning about contains silica crystalline.On There web sight its listed under abrasive sand or pool sand.silica crystalline Quartz.Fine to med grade looks white. Coarse looks yellowish.I think its the right stuff HELP. www.flatrockbagging.com under pool sand coarse grit.

Sorry Matt, I'll leave that to you next time
As for the sand. If it says "Silica Crystalline Quartz" it should be fine because Silica Sand is made up of almost entirely (99%+) quartz sand.
Good luck

dantt99 wrote:As for the sand. If it says "Silica Crystalline Quartz" it should be fine because Silica Sand is made up of almost entirely (99%+) quartz sand.

I agree.

This goes for this sand, or any commercial sand that has a website and product information.

If you navigate to the coarse pool filter sand section on the website you provided, you will see a link under the Pool Filter Sand #3 that says "MSDS." It is in PDF form and stands for "Material Safety Data Sheet." A company is required to provide this document for any substance that are potentially harmful. In our case, this is good since Silica Sand can cause Silicosis from the silica dust, so by composition silica sand is potentially harmful (don't worry though, in the small amounts we use it in we'll all be fine! Except for maybe Matt and Steve ). If you open the document and go to Section 3, it gives the constituent components of the product, which you can see is 99.0-99.9% Crystalline Silica. So long story short, it is safe to use, and in the future if you're ever concerned you can check the MSDS document since they should always be available for silica sand.