Southdown Play Sand...

[Justler]

I live on the East Coast in Maryland... I am going to try and get some southdown play sand for my 125gallon tank instead of the $31/bag lfs aragonite sand. I am then going to buy sand activator for the tank from ipsf.com... Does anyone know who may sell southdown in Maryland, northern virginia or southern PA??? I could pay to have it shipped otherwise if it is cost effective compared to the lfs price.

[Ninong]

Justler,

You get it in the Garden Dept. of Home Depot stores in your area. It's only about $3.50 per 50-lb bag and the bag will read: Southdown Tropical Play Sand from the Caribbean. Just check around. It's all over the east coast in the area of New York, Mass., New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, northern Virginia, etc.

Good luck,

Ninong

[golfish]

It also sold under the name of Yardright. The Yardright will be in 40 pound bags and the Southdown will be in 50 pound bags....

They both say "Tropical Play Sand from the Caribbean"

[Justler]

Great guys, thanks for the help... i'm going to home depot tonight for a few things, i'll grab a look.

[Reefland]

First one:

[Reefland]

Second one:

Good luck in your search,
Scott Z.

[Reefland]

If you do find it, wear old clothes and gloves. The color from the bags will turn you into a smurf!

Scott Z. ;)

[Justler]

wooo, found it! They have like 4 pallets of the stuff! $3.89/50 lb bag... Sure beats $32 for a 25 lb bag of lfs sand!

[jsaltzgi]

Anyone know of Southdown/ Yardright availability in Ohio? I haven't seen any, and don't know if PA is the closest place?

[Ninong]

Yes, it is usually available at one particular Home Depot in suburban Cleveland. I may be able to find the name and address for you on one of the boards. If memory serves me, I think it was Cleveland Heights? Does that ring a bell?

Ninong

P.S. -- I just found the post that I remembered from Sept. 2001 on Reef Central. Looks like it was in the Cleveland area alright but it's called Highland Heights. Here is a copy of that post:

"I've looked all over the Cleveland area and no one has it anymore. Last place I saw it was the HD in Highland Heights, but I was there last week and they only have that crappy Best play sand now. I had 3 bags but donated them to a live sand project. Don't know where you can find it anymore."

So, it looks like that guy did locate it at the Home Depot in Highland Heights at one time. Some of these stores only stock it in the spring and summer because it is considered a Gardening Dept. item.

[jsaltzgi]

Thanks, Ninong. I'm in the process of setting up a 75 gallon rr, and bought about 1/3 of the sand I needed and then remembered Southdown... I'll check the gardening area at HD and I might start asking if they can get it special order here in Columbus. Ill check up around Cleveland next time I get up to that area. Thanks again!!

[Ninong]

Scott,

What's up with the two pics you posted in this thread? They can't be the original pics or someone (me, for instance) would have said something.

If memory serves me, you originally posted a picture of a 50-lb bag of Southdown sand and a picture of a 40-lb bag of Yardright sand, but now we are treated to a picture of AquaCraft's Bio-Sea Marinemix salt and what looks to be someone's refugium/sump.

Just wondering.

[Reefland]

LOL, it's Southdown's new packaging!

Actually, when we moved to the new server the attatchment table in the database did not backup propoerly thus we had some glitches with the attatched images.

However in this case, I have the orginals that I can post again.

Regards,

[njk6114]

Where does it say Soughdown, Inc. is located. It looks like it says Easton, PA.
Thanks,
Nate King
njk6114@yahoo.com

LOL, it's Southdown's new packaging!

Actually, when we moved to the new server the attatchment table in the database did not backup propoerly thus we had some glitches with the attatched images.

However in this case, I have the orginals that I can post again.

Regards,

[Reefland]

Shoot I can't remember the city but it was in VA.

[Ninong]

Hi njk6114, welcome to Reefland!

Yes, you are right, the bags do say Easton, PA. I believe it is bagged there and distributed from there. However, the newer bags will probably say Oldcastle because I believe Southdown sold out to Oldcastle. This would be the second change of ownership within the past two or three years. CEMEX, the Mexican conglomerate based in Monterrey bought Southdown a couple of years ago but I believe they sold it to Oldcastle, another gigantic international conglomerate.

All aragonite sand comes from the same place in the Bahamas, Marcona Ocean Industries' Ocean Cay site. It is mined from the ocean floor. Some of it ends up in Florida and some of it goes by barge to Pennsylvania. It looks like it is being sold under several different brand names now. Some of the different brands may be controlled by the same ownership, so it's hard to figure out what's really going on.

P.S. -- I just checked CEMEX's website and found this interesting statement:

CEMEX is implementing the value opportunities identified in its post-merger integration of Southdown's operations. Thanks to these initiatives, the company expects to yield significant annual recurrent savings.

Either they haven't upgraded their website recently or perhaps they sold off only Southdown's aragonite operations.

[Ninong]

Shoot I can't remember the city but it was in VA.

You're in dire need of a memory transplant.

[Reefland]

Your telling me! I've got a bad case of CRS.

It has been driving me crazy since I posted this and I have looked at some maps, it may have been Kingston, VA.

Scott Z.

[Ninong]

Your telling me! I've got a bad case of CRS.

It has been driving me crazy since I posted this and I have looked at some maps, it may have been Kingston, VA.

Scott Z.

What are you talking about? Are you talking about where you used to pick up the 40-lb bags of Yardright?

[Reefland]

Yes. One time when we got it is was in the traditional Southdown bags, another time it was in the Yardright bags. The Southdown had 54 bags per pallet, the Yardright was 72 bags per pallet.