We are in the process of changing out our crushed coral for sand. We just got back from the local Home Depot and Lowe's. We couldn't find any of the much talked about Southdown playsand. All either store had was QuickKrete and some other brand of play sand. Both were washed and cleaned sand. The one brand (I don't remember the name of it) looked a little whiter and finer than the Quick Krete brand. At any rate, can either type of sand be used? Is there anything special about this Southdown brand that makes it better than any other brands? Thanks in advance for any recommendations.
Quickrete Sand??
- Thread starter caymangone
- Start date
Southdown is the Holy Grail of playsands because it is aragonite and provides the same sort of buffering effect as crushed coral. Unfortunately, it is not available in all areas of the U.S.
Silica type playsands are quite acceptable, the finer the grain size, the better.
If I had the choice between playsand and QuicKrete, I would steer away from the concrete filler on the basis (perhaps unfounded) that the washing process for that might be less thorough than for the playsand.
Silica type playsands are quite acceptable, the finer the grain size, the better.
If I had the choice between playsand and QuicKrete, I would steer away from the concrete filler on the basis (perhaps unfounded) that the washing process for that might be less thorough than for the playsand.
I used the quickrete brand "playsand" and it seems to be fine no unusual water quality issues and everything is still alive after two weeks. quickrete does make a concrete filler sand and that is deffinatly not marine friendly idf it says playsand then based on my experience you should be fine. two weeks is not a long time in the marine world but i think in this case if something bad was in the sand then it would have shown up imediatly.
i followed the dsb sticky procedure and although i had one **** of a sand storm and was a bit concerned for my fish everything cleared up in about 4 hours using some polyester pillow stuffing in my sump.
fyi, i used two different brands of playsand just to try and get a greater grain size distribution.
i followed the dsb sticky procedure and although i had one **** of a sand storm and was a bit concerned for my fish everything cleared up in about 4 hours using some polyester pillow stuffing in my sump.
fyi, i used two different brands of playsand just to try and get a greater grain size distribution.
southdown sand
I was looking for southdown sand and couldnt find it anywhere.Then I found out that Southdown also is called OldCastle.It says right on the bagCARRIBEAN PLAYSAND.It also says not for aquarium use,needless to say,its the best sand i have used yet.hope that lil tidbit helps with the name and all.GOOD LUCK
I was looking for southdown sand and couldnt find it anywhere.Then I found out that Southdown also is called OldCastle.It says right on the bagCARRIBEAN PLAYSAND.It also says not for aquarium use,needless to say,its the best sand i have used yet.hope that lil tidbit helps with the name and all.GOOD LUCK
i used quickcrete playsand when i couldn't find the southdown stuff. no problems whatsoever here.
Thanks for the input everyone. I just successfully changed out all but about 5% or less of the CC for playsand that I got from Lowe's. There wasn't any name brand that I could see. The important thing is that is said it was washed, cleaned and dried. It actually looked whiter than the Quickrete sand sitting next to it. Anyway, I ended up using almost 100 pounds for a total depth of around three inches. Man, you talk about scary! I had to take out all 70 pounds of live rock leaving behind the fish (1 yellow tang, clown fish, damsel and blenny). I seriously didn't think that water would ever clear up but to much of my surprise, it did in about 5 hours. Everything looks great now and the fish are back to being their usual selves. I'm going to make a few nylon stuffers of the old CC to put back into the tank to seed the new sand. BTW, I ended up doing about a 50% water change.