I know its ok to use regular lowes or home depot quickcrete or regular silica based play sand in marine tanks, as I used to ahve one , i had inverts and fish ,

But can octopus live with this sand mixed with live carribean sand

I would buy extra tufa rock , and also crushed coral to help buffer

I have a 240 tank and cant affrod 12 bags of $45 calcium based sand at our petstore , so I am going to have to resort to a little substituion
I was planning on mixing 80 lbs with about 100 lbs of live sand from teh fish store

will this work ?

any dangers in using silica sand with octos?

Thats fine,

Its usually what i recomend people do, just as long as you you buffer with rocks like you said :)

Only problem with silica sand, is that it does enhance the growth of hair/mat algaes...just keep it clean! (I use silica a lot...just some extra tank scrubbing now and again)

there are chemicals that u can use to help reduce the silicates and the algae itself. Seachem's "phosguard" has always worked well for me in reef tanks and the product "chemiclean" (i think that is how it is spelled) is about the only thing that i have found to reliably get rid of the slime algae that covers the sand. i hope that helps, sorry for the spelling.

so far everyone thats replied has used silica sand lol

thast what i got in my tank , its pretty clear, its foggy , but you can see everything , Hopefully in a couple days it will be really clear

im going to start the cycle wiht a couple of damsels, and then im going to add my lionfish , who is really outgrowning my 30 gallon , then I will give him to petstoer and get the octo