FlytrapCare Carnivorous Plant Forums

So I just repotted many of my nepenthes, a cephalotus, and some drosera in peat, perlite, lfs, and quikrete premium play sand. Now this evening I read that some people wouldn't recommend this sand for CPs. The writing on the packaging was too small but I thought play sand was silica sand.
It says on the msds that it is 99.0-99.9% quartz sand
http://www.quikrete.com/PDFs/MSDS-B4-Playsand.pdf
Did I screw up? Please let me know if I need to re-repot all my plants.
Thanks for the help!
Charles

umm i think you may get away with it.wait a while and see if owt bad happens,if it does,repot em

Thanks squirtoman,
I asked Jeff Dallas of Sarracenia NW and he said he uses quikrete playsand all the time and it is fine. So I think I will leave them while keeping a close eye.

If anyone still thinks this is bad please let me know though!

floridadancerguy wrote:I thought play sand was silica sand.
It says on the msds that it is 99.0-99.9% quartz sand

Usually "play sand" (for children's sandboxes) is river or beach sand, or dredged from surface deposits. It is usually not silica sand (which is composed almost exclusively of silicon dioxide a.k.a. quartz) but instead a mixture of grains and bits of many kinds of rock, some of which are soluble in water. Sometimes "play sand" is lethal to Venus Flytraps and other carnivorous plants, which may show symptoms of salt burn from the dissolved minerals in weeks or several months depending on concentration.

However, if the information you found on the manufacturer's information sheet is correct and the sand you bought is indeed 99% quartz sand, then it is silica sand and it's fine to use.

You can test whether it's silica sand yourself, if you have a high-powered magnifier such as a jeweler's or rock-hound's loupe. (the Belomo 10X triplet loupe is great; I have two of them). When you examine the sand at high magnification, if most or almost all of the grains are translucent (allow light to pass through like frosted glass), then it's silica sand. If on the other hand a large percentage of the grains of sand are opaque (will not let light through), then there are too many other types of rock in the sand, and it would probably be better not to use it.

Silica sand, with an American dime for scale. A U.S. dime is approximately 18 millimeters in diameter. Best wishes and good luck!

Thank you Steve for the information and the picture to go along with it!