I am planning on changing my Mbuna tank to sand. I am trying to find cheep black sand. Maybe I don't know where to look or just can't find it. I am not going to have it planted so I don't need eco complete or anything. I think I have fell in love with Black background and substrate for my cichlids. Any help on my quest to find black sand would be great.

Menards, ask for black sand blasting sand,
like 6 bucks for a 50# bag......

it's not completely black but still looks good as it is,
close up that shows it,

little farther back,

I like the way it looks, the off colors give it a nice contrast and some depth in the tank.
I also agree on the black back ground, the new 75 I painted black, and i toll the double sided back drop off the 55g i replaced and put the black side on my 75g planted tank, man what a difference that made.....

Yeah that does look nice! I never thought of sand blasting sand. I wonder how it would look mixed in with pebble stone. I just put about 150lbs of rocks in my 75g last night.

I forgot to mention, what I do with my rock, mostly everything Big like in the 75g, I have footing rocks under,
just smaller mexican beach cobble used as a foundation under big rocks so when the fish dig under the rocks, they don't shift and fall breaking the glass out or harming the fish or worse.

I had a bunch of it, and used some to landscape out a ten gallon I had yellow lab fry growing out in.

I should mention to, you'll need to rinse the sandblasting sand, very well, and one bag imho is plenty for a 75g, covers the tank nice, and not real deep, so you don't get all that dept in sand collecting poisons or gasses.

I did it in tank and it sucked, lol

Good advise, Thanks! I just stacked my rocks up two days later My Albino grasheki dug out his spawning grounds the next day the female non albino was holding eggs in her mouth. I hope I get some albinos this time.

That looks great! I would love to put black sand in my 29g snail tank but I'm not to sure how that would work. Since the snails would be walking/gliding on it. I'll have to look into it.

If your still looking for black sand, check if there's a Petsmart close by. My local Petsmart is not carrying any more gravel that isn't Top Fin brand. I just picked up some very pretty black and white coral gravel (super clearance too) and I saw right next to it was a bunch of bags of (I think Seagan brand) black/really dark gray sand.

Our clsest P/S is 2 + hour drive. I'll have to look at their web site & see, maybe I can get some shipped. With the price of gas, it would prob. be about the same.
Thanks again S/F!!!

Wow that looks nice Mr Aquarium. When I redo my 72 gallon bow front Im going to use Seachems flourite black sand. I plan on breaking down my planted 10g and moving everything into the 72g.

I have been looking around and found some. I am procrastinating on doing anything ATM.

i have black sand in my p bass tank, looks awesome and i got it at petsmart, i think it was 22.99 for either 15 or 20 lb bags

That sucks my Petsmart don't sell it