white sand substrate

[tonyb]

i was at petco the other day lookign to score some of that 3.99 kent zoe. of course they were out.... anyway i saw they had this white ocean sand. which IMO would look awesome in a tank. it was 7.99 for 10lbs. i was wondering if anyone has used anything like this, or if this stuff was bad for our tanks.

http://www.petco.com/product_info.as...1&dept_id=%2D2

[Reefer769]

its looks safe to me... and it also says it is 100% natural sand straight from the ocean, but i dunno if thats totaly true, im thinking of putting a layer of that kind of sand on my sand bed, so i think we need someone elses advice.

[tonyb]

When looking at it in the store. it almost looked wet. or damp... like it was packaged before it completely dried. it did look like the real thing.. but who knows if they used anything to thin out the real sand...

[Reefer769]

i say look around at your local hardware store for some, "south down play sand". that would be your best bet and it would be a lot cheaper then 8$ for 10 lbs. you can also get a cup of "live sand" from your LFS to seed the southdown play sand. this is what i will be doing

[tonyb]

i say look around at your local hardware store for some, "south down play sand". that would be your best bet and it would be a lot cheaper then 8$ for 10 lbs. you can also get a cup of "live sand" from your LFS to seed the southdown play sand. this is what i will be doing

problem with southdown which i dont want to deal with is the cloudyness... i dont want to end up with a sand storm everytime a PH is moved... i have heard to many horror stories of SD. i have no problem paying 100 for a nice white sand bed... Dont get me wrong. i think SD looks Awesome in the bottom of a tank!! i just want something a little less messy.

[Reefer769]

alright youve made a good point, now i think i should rethink using it also... i say lets find out a little more about this 100% ntaural sand and if its good stuff then ill give it a shot.

[tonyb]

alright youve made a good point, now i think i should rethink using it also... i say lets find out a little more about this 100% ntaural sand and if its good stuff then ill give it a shot.

well... heres what im gonna do. i was planning on puttin together a fuge. so i might do that today. and i just might get a bag of this stuff, and seed it with some sand from my lfs.

[Ninong]

What you are looking at is plain old aragonite sand from exactly the same place in the Bahamas that ALL of the aragonite sand comes from. It is ALL mined in the same cay by the same company, Marcona Ocean Industries.

It is a commodity. How much you pay depends on the merchandising. Scubadude got an entire pickup truck bed full of the stuff (almost two tons) for something like $40 by picking it up directly from the bulk facility and not disclosing what he intended to use it for. That's the low end of the price range. You are looking at the high end of the price range.

Companies like Nature's Ocean, Carib-Sea and others screen it by particle size and offer it in different "blends" based on size. Southdown, Yardright and Oldcastle (all exactly the same) do not screen it by particle size. We know what the particle size blend is for these cheapy brands because Dr. Rob Toonen has already done a particle size analysis and published the results.

So... You have lots of choices out there at lots of different prices. Some folks are content to pay $3.99/50-lb bag at their local Home Depot (only in the East) and others may choose to pay $7.99/10-lb bag for Nature's Ocean or $24.99/30-lb bag for Carib-Sea. I started with four 50-lb bags of Southdown but I decided I needed some more sand so I purchased two 30-lb bags of Carib-Sea to add to my Southdown because Southdown was no longer available near me. I was unable to see any difference whatsoever between the Southdown and the Carib-Sea. It looked exactly the same to me. Exactly. That was Southdown and Carib-Sea Aragamax sugar sized sand. There may have been a difference in particle size blends but I couldn't see it.

There is another company called Pure Aragonite that is selling this stuff, too. Their prices are higher than Southdown but not as high as Carib-Sea or Nature's Ocean.

The answer to your question is: Yes, the stuff you are considering for 80 cents/lb. is good stuff. The price may be a bit steep, but it's still good stuff.

I just can't resist posting a link to this thread. Check out the second picture in this thread. That's the same stuff for only 1 cent/lb. My Greenhouse FARM In the making!

[Reefer769]

thanks for the reply ninong, youve always got the answers. i will look around for some southdown play sand, but if i cant find any of that i will go to petco and buy a couple bags of the nuture's ocean sand.

[Reefer769]

how many pounds of sand do you think i will need to cover the top of my sand bed( i already have) about 1/2" to 1", its a 30gal cube, 20.5"L, 18.5"W.

[Ninong]

how many pounds of sand do you think i will need to cover the top of my sand bed( i already have) about 1/2" to 1", its a 30gal cube, 20.5"L, 18.5"W.

About 30-lbs more should bring you up to about a 3" depth. How deep you go depends on your approach. If I were setting up a 30-gal cube I would probably go with about a 3.5" deep sand bed.

[Reefer769]

no no haha, you misunderstood the question, i already have a sand bed of argonite thats about 2", i want to add a layer of southdown or natures ocean on top of the sand bed i already have , how much more sand do you think i would need to get the sand bed up another 1/2" or 1"?

[tonyb]

sweet!! i have never seen white Carib-Sea but i will keep looking. southdown is still to messy for me. i need to find a place i can buy this stuff in bulk like that. not only would it work great for the tank, but at that price we could resand our beach volleyball setup with some nice sand...

[Ninong]

sweet!! i have never seen white Carib-Sea but i will keep looking. southdown is still to messy for me. i need to find a place i can buy this stuff in bulk like that. not only would it work great for the tank, but at that price we could resand our beach volleyball setup with some nice sand...

None of it is truly white. It is a light tan color. It only looks white in the tank filled with water and the bright lights on.

[Reefer769]

so how much sand will i need....

[Poseidon]

Here is a great opprotunity to use some of that pesky GEOMETRY you learn in school.... Volume equals length x width x height. You could write an equation pretty simply and use what you have already added as a basis, then solve for the variable of .5-.75"...

[Reefer769]

haha just so you guys know... i suck at math well anyways thanks

[Reefer769]

haha so can someone please tell me how much sand i will need...?

[Ninong]

haha so can someone please tell me how much sand i will need...?

I can't tell you exactly how much sand you will need without knowing how much the sand weighs per cubic foot. Aragonite sand varies from about 70 to 90 lbs per cubic foot. As a rough guesstimate, figure on about 15 or 16 lbs per added inch of depth for your particular tank.

[Reefer769]

i will shop need to shop around a little to find a good price.