FlytrapCare Carnivorous Plant Forums

Hey all, made a contact this week for a supplier of silica sand in Pittsburgh.

They carry ultra coarse and coarse grade silica sand, and have shipping available to anywhere in the US.

Prices are a little steep, but they do offer bulk discounts for group orders and quantities of 5 or more bags.

Website: http://www.brownshillsand.com/

They know their stuff when it comes to sand, and are definite plant enthusiasts (their office is a work area and tropical greenhouse sorta smashed into one, haha).

I picked up a bag of their 6/12 and a bag of their 10/20 sands. The 6/12 is almost a cross between very small silica gravel and VERY coarse silica sand, and the 10/20 is identical to what a few ebay-ers are hocking for $12 a gallon with shipping.

Prices weren't too bad at $12/50lb bag. Discounts per bag start at a 5 bag order and up.

When I talked to them and told them that their sand was being used for carnivore growing, they were a little excited at the cool factor of this hobby, and definitely were interested in hearing from any and all of us that are out there on sand and aggregate Q & A.

That price doesn't sound so bad, really, though I'm sure shipping would be a killer. It's impossible to find silica sand anywhere on the west coast. The only possibly suitable product I've been able to find that comes in actual coarse size (not what a lot of manufacturers label as coarse) is only 90% silica and nearly 10% aluminum which I'm not sure is safe or not.

I mentioned on another thread that pool filter sand is 100% silica. It is generally 10/20 or just 20 depending on brand. It also has a very low dust content (who wants dust in their pool?)

Sent from my Lenovo TB3-850F using Tapatalk

Er yes I should say that pool filter sand is readily-available here, but all the products I've seen are much finer than I'd like. I'm using pool filter sand right now (it's actually glass rather than silica) but I still want something larger since sand this size doesn't seem to promote drainage at all.

nimbulan wrote:Er yes I should say that pool filter sand is readily-available here, but all the products I've seen are much finer than I'd like. I'm using pool filter sand right now (it's actually glass rather than silica) but I still want something larger since sand this size doesn't seem to promote drainage at all.

Exact same situation I'm in. The only pool filter sand available here is Mystic White, and it takes a bit to get it clean. The other problem is that the amount of fines that are mixed in are to the point where drainage is hindered. I'll post some pictures of the stuff I picked up with a ruler for scale.