Quickcrete playsand ok?

[Purple Haze]

My local home depot does not carry southdown. Is the quickcrete brand of playsand ok? It's been washed already, so they say, but of course, i'd do the best I could with rinsing.

 

Would this sand be ok for a dsb?

 

Thanks!

[mattdog]

The answer to this question is no. The reason South Down sand is a good reef sand is because that's exactly what it is, reef sand. It's aragonite.

 

The quikrete sand is a silica based sand. Silicates in our aquariums generally lead to algae outbreaks among several other problems, therefore making it useless in the reef hobby.

 

I hope this helps and do do some detailed research on the effects of silicates in a reef system if you need more details.

 

HTH,

 

Matt

[Purple Haze]

From what the Houston guys have said is that they've found southdown here locally. Im just south of houston and cannon find the stuff at my local home depot.

 

Is that not who carries it?

 

Thanks

[wingsfan]

i second mattdog

[FlyGTI]

Reference this thread too for more information (however, it disagrees with the opinions here).

 

http://www.nano-reef.com/forums/showthread...=&threadid=4646

 

Personally, I've got about 200 lbs. of Quikrete playsand functioning as a DSB in my 90. No problems yet. The only complaint I have is that it's not as bright white as I'd like. If I could do it over again, I'd try a little harder to find Southdown.

[lizbeth]

I'll back up FlyGTI. It will be fine. I'm too lazy right now to look it up but there lots of info saying it's just fine. I've had it in my 5.5 for 15 months with no problem.

 

If I had it to do over and couldn't get SD I would buy some Caribsea only because I like the color better. The QC is kind of grey.

[Dustin]

I am using oldcastle, and a few people told me it was bad but for me its fine.

[foo]

Southdown Tropical Playsand is only sold east of the Misissipi. The stuff is strip mined from a Carribean island. CaribSea has an exclusive license with the company that mines the stuff to resell their product for the aquarium trade. What CaribSea doesn't want is packaged by Southdown as playsand. The Southdown playsand is mostly oolitic.

 

I bought a 50lb sack of southdown from HomeDepot when I was driving through in New Jersey and I stopped for a White Castle Hamburger. I put the sand in my luggage for the flight home since they allowed up to 75lbs of checked luggage at the time.

Of course this was before 9-11. The woman at the checkin counter eyed me suspiciously when the bag almost ripped her arm off when she tried to lift it. Post 9-11 they might throw you in jail of suspicion of sending a unibom if you tried what I did.

[onthefly]

No Southdown in the Northwest, and it would cost $60 for 40lbs of it shipped. So, I found at Lowes......Quikcrete "fine grade" commercial sand 100lbs for $6. It's white as hell and very fine grain size. It works fantastic in my tanks (all DSB's).

 

As for the reported algae blooms. Silica sand is what was used for decades...now it's crap since aragonite has come along: . The only known organism to use silica in sufficient quantities are diatoms. Other than the initial blooms during cycling, I've never had diatoms. Here's a good article on the subject:

 

http://www.rockymountainreefclub.com/article4.html

 

Lastly, silica is VERY insoluble in saltwater, so you have just as much a chance getting soluble silica from your glass (aka silica) tank as you do from the sand. It's actually Felspar contaminants in many sands which can cause problems, so just look at an MSDS for the product and look at the composition. If it is >99% SiO2 you're good to go.

 

It doesn't have the buffering capacity that aragonite has, but that's why we doseB) .

[dickwayne]

http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.p...5&highlight=dsb

 

How about no sand at all!?!