Re: Suthdown - tropical sand - ammonia/nitrites

I would always wash any sand unless its the wet packed type or sand I
collected myself out of the ocean. In time any sand is going to break
downand give fines, and the last thing I want is all that silty fine
stuff that always has the propensity to cloud up...Just normal
shipping and handling of bags of the sand (softer and less dense than
silica types) will create lots of fines and dust in the bags alone,
which really needs to be removed. 99% of the time, any sand I have
used (all proper marine tank stuff) once wahed or dumped out of the
bag itself if wet packed, created a relatively clear appearance within
hours or no more than a day once it was added to a tank.

There are two schools of thought on the use of this infamous southdown
sand......those for it and speak highly of it and those that do not
recomend it if other sand is available..I belong to the later myself,
after seeing some pics of Southdown after a few months of use.

I probably stated previously my friend runs a LFS (marine fish only)
and he also has a maitenace section that maintains setups for
commercial establishments and also rents tanks out to places like
doctors offices etc........We bought 2 pallet loads of this southdown
sand and used it initially. On a few tanks he was getting all kinds of
weird parameters and later on after they got to normal ranges, he was
getting all kinds of strange growths and stains occuring......He found
out it was the actual sand itself. This sand was mot bagged and
collected for aquarium use it was bagged and collected to be be used
for making mortar and concrete cement. The area it is collected form
has a known high metallic content, and the sand itself is not
processed to remove any small particles etc from it that contain
metals nor is precautions made to ensure none of the processing
equipment does not add any unwanted content to the sand either
(crushers, sieves, etc). to me its about like going to wal mart and
buying a bag of crushed limestone to use since its fine like sand,
but its nowhere close to being totally suitable for a marine tank. He
also noticed it had unusually long cycle times, as compared to the
commonly available sands that is marketed for aquarium use.

At a later date he simply placed about 50# of this sand in a tank with
freshwater and allowed it to circulate.....Soon small brownish red
stains started to appear.........it was from iron content in the sand.
He had to eventually drain out his customers tanks and refill them
using sand other than southdown....He currently (last I seen outside
his back door of the shop anyhow) has over a pallet of the stuff
setting outside his shop for a long time now, and even in the bags you
can see clumps of mineral buildup and reddish looking stains and
growths. I took perhaps 1/2 a pallet (bout 15 to 20 bags) of the
stuff as he wanted it gone and used it under some brick
pavers.....works good for that...

Southdown some swear by it others swear at it.......Another fellow on
another forum had to buy a pallet of it from HD as his local store did
not carry it....It was ordered in from another store and had to pay
the shiping / freight costs to have it delivered to his local
store...He too had problems with the sand. Yet another drove close to
500 miles round trip to pickup a load of it from a HD store, and he
too had nothing but troubles that went away once he changed the
southdown out of his tank.....To me its just not worth fooling with.

While Southdown is almost entirely carbonaceous, very little silicate
content there is always that chance of unwanted junk in it as well, so
at the least I would wash it very very thouroughly before usiing it.
Yea I may be making a statement contrary to the way I started this
reply, but if I was to use it, I would wash it, a few times at
minimum. Lots of folks some of whom are well known in the saltwater
world give it a thumbs up, and some a thumbs half way or fully down.
And I belive this is because its simply quarried, and processed
without any real inspectins as to its full content, so lots of it may
vary and its the luck of the draw.... I use a lot of sand from the
Gulf of Mexico, and its far from being carbonaceous in nature and its
primarily silica based, and it works fine. I seem to think my large
amounts of live rock make up for the buffering that the silica sands
do not provide.


On Sun, 29 Jan 2006 10:37:01 -0600, "Pszemol" <Pszemol@xxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
>><>I am seting up new fish tank with DSB using Southdown sand.
>><>
>><>I have read recommendations to not wash the sand, just pour
>><>it from the bag to the tank. I understand this is to keep
>><>the finest particles there for animals - I did as suggested...
>><>
>><>When I poured water I got white milk effect with foam on top :)
>><>Waited couple of days and it is still deep white milk :-)
>><>
>><>When I have done it couple of years ago I do not remember
>><>if I washed the sand or not in the bucket... probably I did.
>><>Anyway... last time it did not take so long for it to settle.
>><>
>><>There is more to it than just milky color... The sand is dirty.
>><>I have measured about 0.50mg/l nitrites! No ammonia, but it
>><>must have been there before... There is no life in there:
>><>no live rock, no live sand - just dry sand and "live water"
>><>from the other fish tank... So the only living thing is the
>><>bacteria from the other reef tank...
>><>
>><>Yesterday, since it was milky anyway and I noticed nitrites
>><>I decided to mix the sand to allow dirt from the bottom
>><>layers to surface and become processed by bacteria...
>><>I mixed the sand with my hand - what I noticed, there is
>><>about 1/8" layer of whiter silt settling on the surface
>><>of more yellowish sand...
>><>
>><>Conclusion:
>><>This sand is dirty and probably needs to be washed before use :-)

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