where to find Southdown,yardright, southdown or oldcastle tropical sand

Home Depot. What you are looking for is Southdown Tropical Sand. I have the Bar code from the Bag and it is 0 9060420100 2 the inner and outer #'s I am not sure they belong in that code.
Hope it helps.

Im having the same problem here in Texas. Ive found a site to buy aragonite sand online at purearagonite.com, though haven't been able to get ahold of anyone there for a price quote.

I found some of the Southdown on ebay a few days ago, 15.00 per bag....and 30.00 a bag to ship. Makes it just a little steep for me.

I just got some stuff from home depot, last week. Its just called play sand. Its in a clear bag and it says it sanitized. It was on an old castle pallet, but did not say old castle on the bag. I vinger tested it and it fizzes away. The stock # is 027324551407. The stuff is pure white and gorgeous!

I also got some stuff from agway called tropical play sand. Its more tan than white and comes in a bag that says tropical play sand. You can't miss it. I like the white stuff better so I used that. pm me if you need more info

If you can't find southdown or old castle you can pretty much use any sand you want. The calcium carbonate in those sands won't really make much difference as far a buffering goes and aren't worth it unless they are avail locally. The reason you want the sand if for de nitrification not ph/kh and most sands will work for it just fine. The Arogonite sands will only disolve into solution at a negligible rate and won't provide any noticeable buffering capabilities. In order for them to dissolve quickly your ph would have to be well fatally low so save your money a get what ever unless you're going for a look.
hth
chris
chris

maxilaria said:

If you can't find southdown or old castle you can pretty much use any sand you want. The calcium carbonate in those sands won't really make much difference as far a buffering goes and aren't worth it unless they are avail locally. The reason you want the sand if for de nitrification not ph/kh and most sands will work for it just fine. The Arogonite sands will only disolve into solution at a negligible rate and won't provide any noticeable buffering capabilities. In order for them to dissolve quickly your ph would have to be well fatally low so save your money a get what ever unless you're going for a look.
hth
chris
chris

Click to expand...

I think their is a much better reason for using aragonite sand rather than silica sand than just buffering.

I did a ton of reading through a lot of marine and reef sites to determine the preferable sand to use as a DSB in my SW tank and found that the aragonite sand does a much better job of providing a good place for beneficial bacteria to grow.

A few of the studies I read showed that the bacteria can colonize in much larger groups because the particles of sand in the aragonite sand are much smoother with few sharp edges, whereas the silica sand particles are very rough and jagged. They showed a comparison between the 2 different types under a high powered microscope and this could plainly be seen. They determined the higher quantities of bacterial growth in the aragonite sand were due entirely to smoother sand particles.

I will post these articles as soon as I can find them.