Southdown sand....

[mrcopitr]

Hi guys,

I just went to the US today, and brought back some southdown sand for my new reef tank...Do I need to wash it before putting in the tank?
Also do you know if Southdown markets different sand,. I'm asking this because, the bag in which it came in is not like the one I've seen on the net...

It says on the bag I just got, that it is from the Caribbean, sterilized and safe for kids...the bag is red and blue with a boy..
and the sand is very fine and white..

Also, have any of you used it, if yes are you satisfied with the results?

Thank you

Marco Pitre
New Brunswick images/smiles/icon_confused.gif

[StirCrazy]

well Marco, I think if you load up a truck with 40 or 60 bags and bring them out here for us to tey we could give you a better answer images/smiles/icon_biggrin.gif but from what I have read just dump it in and wait for the storm to calm down.. you want to keep all the fine silt you would wash away if you tried..

Steve

[cvrle1]

Hope you don't mind me asking but where did you get southdown from?

Thanks

[mrcopitr]

I got it from Home depot in Bangor Maine...

[Shadetree]

Marco,

I believe that the sand you have is definately southdown, the bag is blue and red right? I did not wash or rinse my sand when I put it into my tank. I used twelve bags of the stuff. It went a couple of days and it was still pretty cloudy, I turned on my skimmer and it cleared up in less than 6 hours.
Here is a link to a pic of it http://www.reefcentral.com/vbulletin/showthread.php?s=&threadid=40183
Here is my tank before it went in
http://www.shadetree.homestead.com/files/Southdown15bags.jpg

Scott

[mrcopitr]

Thank you Scott for the link on the web about the southdown sand..that is exactly the sand I purchased...same bag...

You mentionned that it a few days for it to clear...when did you start adding the live rock...before or after it cleared...what about the live sand???

Best regards

Marco

[Shadetree]

Marco,

I started my tank in this order: I first filled it with RO/DI water (all 5 days of it images/smiles/icon_smile.gif ) then mixed in the salt and heated it to the desired temp. I filled the tank to just below the water level I wanted and left the sump and refugium empty so that the water displaced by the sand would have somewhere to go. I then simply poured all that sand directly into the tank. It was thick and milky for the first couple of days. Once it had started to show signs of improvement I turned on the skimmer, I had to empty it a couple of times. I added my live rock after the water had cleared up. I did not want to have to blast all the sediment off of the rock right after putting it in and there would have been no way to see the rock to aquascape anyway. Nobody in my area has Southdown and I do not know of anyone who is even using such a fine sand yet, so I got a bunch of coarser sand seeded from a fellow reefers tank. I gave him a couple of five gallon buckets a month or so in advance to put in his system and when I was ready, I just went back and filled the buckets back up and put in into my refugium, which contains the same grain of sand. If you use uncured rock to cycle, I would wait till the end of the cycle to put in the live sand so you can maximize the survival of all the beneficial critters and bacteria. HTH.

Scott