has any ony used the south down sand from home depot on a reef tank im setting up a 75 gallon and dont want do drop all the money for live sand so i was thing 2 bags south down i bag live sand is this a good idea
I think most of us that have set up more then 1 tank and decided to sue sand has used the play sand. Make sure you get the white play sand and not the brown “sand box” sand. There is a huge difference. The brown contains heavy metals and minerals you don’t want in your tank.
The white is a more pure sand with little to no contaminants. Just make sure you rinse it well first. You can add a whole bag of Live Sand if you want to but you can get away with just getting a cup of sand from a friend or two and use it to seed your new sand. Your new sand bed will be live sand very very quickly.
There’s a great article on substrate options on the portal page of this site right now - you might want to give it a quick read to.
Just hit the “home” button in black and white above.
Actually, i don’t believe HD sells SouthDown Aragonite sand anymore. they stopped selling that type a few years ago. what they have sold lately is KOLORSCAPE white play sand, which is silica based sand. but reefers all over have used the silica sand with no problem. the difference is the old southdown was carbonate based, and in the event your tank dropped to PH 7.6 or less, it would disolve and add some buffering support. aragonite is also a smooth, round grain particle type. the silica sand is crushed quartz with sharper edges. but smooths out in time. I think a bunch of the guys in the club have been using it with no problem. it still provides lots of surface area for bacteria to culture.