Playsand or Silica

Marvin

Marvin

MyPetPugMilo
Dec 17, 2003
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Irvine, CA
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Ok, im planning on doing a CC / DSB swap. With all the threads going on i thought it was about time.

The sand at HD is either red Playsand or Silica. What is the difference? How about color? I heard the playsand doesn't stay white.

Last. Can i top off the DSB with about 1" of store bought aragonite?
 
Just some thoughts...

I'm kind of curious to know what the red Playsand is. Is it just regular sand (i.e. silica) that has been coated with some sort of red coloring?

The playsand that I am using was never exactly "white" in the first place, and it's doing at least as good a job of maintaining its color as my CC did before I swapped it.

If you want to lay some expensive aragonite down on top of that nice cheap silica purely for appearance, you may be dissapointed after a while. Part of the function of a DSB is that it gets turned over (slowly) by its inhabitants. Eventually that aragonite will all get "plowed-under" anyway.

Having some aragonite in the tank (for a pH buffer) is not a bad idea, but you could accomplish the same thing by putting some of the CC you pull from your old substrate in the sump.
 
Ok, I don't have a sump. My assumption is that aragonite will be an additional benefit to the new DSB. If it is not, then i don't need to spend the extra money.
 
Ah, by "store-bought" aragonite, do you mean actual live-sand, complete with the full host of nitrogen munching bacteria? If so, then the layer of aragonite would provide a huge jumpstart to your DSB.

But caveat emptor. Orion Girl (as my memory serves) has observed that much of what is offered by the LFS as "live-sand" is just junk.

If it is a bacterial jumpstart you seek, the same can accomplished by loading up some nylons (women's hosiery) with some of the old CC and laying it on top of the new DSB in a high flow area.
 
Don't waste $$

I wouldn't waste any money on "purchased" bacterium. ;) That's snake oil, plain and simple. You can kick it up a notch by burying in a shrimp or two somewhere, and the biofilm will eventually get to all the granules. There's no harm in letting this bacteria establish itself over time.

As for playsand vs. silica... whichever you can get. Silica sand works just fine. I dunno about this "red" sand. Sounds interesting... HTH
 
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