First of all welcome to the forums
Now... lets get started...
You sure can use regular play sand for you tank... although it is a little more complicated than that... there are many sands as mentioned above that can't be used... this is due to high silicates in the sand... and this is harmful for your tank... there are a few brands out there that are good though... these are the play sands that are made by... yardright or aka old castle... most of these play sands are quite hard to find... but I do know as a fact that oldcastle is still around because I have found it...One way you can test if the sand is good or not is through a test called the vinegar test... take a handful of the sand and drop some vinegar on it... if it sizzles.. the sand is good!! ...
Next... you can also use some live rock and some base rock... that is how pretty much everyone does it... you can also look into making your own base rock... I also did this... if you check in the archives section you will see threads on diy rock :joy:
Okay now the concept of lr and ls.... Okay soo if you find a good brand of play sand that is useable all you need to do is put it in your tank along with some live rock and you will be on your way to ls! Yep thats right... thats all you need to do... see.. what ls and lr is ... is filled with live critters that are beneficial to your tank... the critters from your lr will eventually fill all of your lr and base rock as well as your sand... and with time it will all become alive!! Another thing that lr has that base rock does not is coralline algae... (make sure when choosing your lr it has lots of coralline and different colors) coralline algae is what makes the rocks look amazing in different shades of purples, pinks, blues,, etc... With the right parameters along with doses of calcium this stuff will spread all over all of your rock making it look amazing!
One last thing... if you are getting base rock and any other uncured rock make sure that you cure it before adding it into your tank... if you do a search you should be able to find how to cure uncured rock...
Happy Reefing!
