I noticed sand for tanks at pet stores is crazy expensive. Can landscaping sand from lowes/home depot or a hardware store be used or do they put some weird crap like chemicals in sand that would be bad for scorpions/lizards?

I just use kids play sand or silica sand. bag of play sand is cheap enough and easily gettable.
Never had a problem with any of those sands.

2nd on the kids play sand that's why we use and it's only a few quid for 15kg so dead cheap I still bake it a bit to make sure there's no nasties in there

I use what we call here Quartz sand. Not sure if it's the same as silica sand.

Silica sand is a very fine, oven baked, dry sand used in paving etc...

Ah, ok. Thanks for the clarification. sounds much better than my quartz sand. Here it's frequently used for terrariums, but you can't really pack it good, it will always stay a bit loose.

I just mix it with Bentonite.

ive got a 25kg bag of kids play sand from b&q it was only £4.50 should i bake it before i use it and how long for at wot temp . or is it ok stright from the bag

I use beaches sand

I think its ok with them

Beach sand shld be fine. I'll bake anythin that is collected.
For sand, i use to buy exo terra desert sand till it got too exp to use them for all my desert specimens..
So i switched to aquarium sand which comes in diff grain size to choose from.
Abt 6USD for a bag which can fill up a 5gallon to the brim

thanks peloquin do u think there will be some desert hairys at the bts show this year

I should think so, there usually is. Adults were £25 last year.

i hope so bud im desprate for one lol

Haha, I know what you mean. I'm waiting for mine already 3 months. Should be here in a week or two though