All you EVER wanted to know about Southdown

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It's too bad that tens of thousands of pounds of Southdown sand was "wasted". It was a cheap resource, but not replenishable.
I tossed my SB from my 55g out. No-one wanted "used" sand.
I'm redoing my system & will be washing & re-using my Southdown sand from my 75g fuge & the 125g show

I also have 9 bags of Southdown stashed for my big tank setup

Southdown R.I.P. :(
 
Good to know Dave. Next time I'm in the Boston area I'll do a little midnight requisitioning at your house. :D

Psst! Hey buddy, want some hot Southdown? :rolleyes:
 
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Just a couple of small notes on those planning on using silica for their DSBs....its significantly harder than aragonite/calcium based sands. You are much more likely to scratch your tank with it if you are not super careful. I have setup and run a number of tanks with silica DSBs and that was honestly the only issue I found vs calcium DSBs. The second thing is to watch the dust when you are rinsing it. Breathing it is a significant health hazard according to OSHA. Likely short exposure isnt going to kill you but hey, how hard is it to wear a mask.

Sorry if this has been posted elsewhere in the thread....too tired to wade through the whole thing to check.
 
One more thing, I am not sure I totally agree with the idea that there is no buffering going in a DSB of CaCO3. I havent looked into it as deeply as RHF has but I do notice that DSBs I have run have a signifcant loss of sand over the course of years. IE I have added about 80 lbs over 2 years to my system to maintain its 5" depth. Some of it is certainly compaction but thats a lot of sand....I have added sand to every bed I have run over time and I have never pulled out significantly more sand by weight than I started with at the end.
 
Meisen,

It is my belief that an aragonite sand does provide some buffering, especially in the deeper anaerobic levels. One of the first products of anaerobic decomposition is the formation of volatile organic acids (such as acetic). This, of course, reacts with the carbonate to form carbon dioxide and calcium acetate. I personally feel that using aragonite helps maintain alkalinity. The amount of calcium acetate formed is rather small and probably doesn't do much to maintain calcium levels.

This whole concept is much debated on the scientific forums but my own feeling is that "every little bit helps" and that aragonite, if you can get it at reasonable cost, is somewhat of a better choice than silicates.

One other thing, if you have dusty silica sand, just wet it down before use to eliminate the dust. In most cases there is really no health threat either way, unless you change sandbeds daily ;), as the infrequent exposure is not the same as a miner or insulator would get.
 
I agree Waterkeeper,
That mechanism you suggest makes sense to my chemically inert brain. A secondary breakdown of more CaCO3 from the C02 produced in the deeper layers can ccur as well. From what I understand, the deeper layers do run lower pH than the upper layers. I presume thats where the breakdown would occur if it were happening. Anyone want to wreck their pH probe (and possibly their tank) by driving it all the way down into their DSB?

Either way, it's still not much IME but if sand is dissolving at any rate....its doing some buffering. While its certainly not going to do much in a tank with fast growing SPS, it probably doesn't hurt either.
 
I found that Toys R' Us carries the south down sand, at least here in Oregon. Home Depot here doesn't even know what south down is.
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7915901#post7915901 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by cbwhitney
I found that Toys R' Us carries the south down sand, at least here in Oregon. Home Depot here doesn't even know what south down is.
Click to expand...

Be careful, just because it is labelled "Southdown" doesn't mean it is "THE" Southdown. The packaging has sometimes stayed the same, but the sand has changed
If it has the original blue bag it may be OK



And if you venture in my yard/house, watch out for my killer cat!! :lol:

warofthecats-vi.gif
 
Hi Whitney
<img src="/images/welcome.gif" width="500" height="62"><br><b><i><big><big>To Reef Central</b></i></big></big>

It could just be. There are concerned parents that don't want to use silica sands in the kid's sandbox. How about running the old vinegar test for us if the bags are cheap.
 
Sure thing CB--take a small quantity of the sand in question, a quarter teaspoonful will do, and pour regular white vinegar over it. It should actively fizz and keep doing so until it dissolves if it is aragonite. Silica sand doesn't fizz or does so only for a brief second or so.
 
ya i think it is pretty well documented that it is not the same.


for what its work silica sand works well and it is certainly debatable that the calcium based sand really buffers all that much. most of our tanks never get a low enough PH to dissolve the calcium and buffer anything.
 
doesn't exist anymore unless you find some random place that has some left over from years ago .

i can't remember the last time i saw a post of someone finding southdown/old castle in the store.
 
It is kind of funny....even a few of the newer LFS in my area don't know what Southdown is..... I was trying to match the particulate size of sand I was giving my parents from my mature DSB of southdown for their new tank w/ what they were going to buy for their substrate.
 
dont it suck to not be able to find something that was soo easy to get and not almost impossible if not impossible....

right before i moved i threw out about 100 lbs of LS ( started out as old castle) now i need 75lbs of it back..... little did i know that the tree in front of my house got a awsome freebee!!!!

anyone know where the cheapest place to buy argonite in houston???

YzGyz
 
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