Just two things.
First if you want a refugium then from all that I have read the turnover rate of the refugium should be about 4-5X the volume of the refugium each hour. Many people who nee the high flow rate are splitting the sump into a refugium side that overflows into the actual sump and split the line coming down with a ball valve on the side of the refugium so as to control the flow. In this manner you can put whatever size return pump in it that you like, use one side as a refugium and use the other to house all of your equipment and you do not have to worry about disturbing the pods too much with the high water flow (not that it really affects them that much IME.)
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Heck a guy digging the stuff up with his oil dripping backhoe could heed natures call and decide where better than off the side...
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Could decide??? Oh, I GUARANTEE you that is where he goes. There is no way he is walking a mile to the can. That being said you bring up a good point about the impurities. I was going to and may still add it. There are a fair amount of impurities floating around mining pits IME and the only saving grace is that for the amount of product produced it should be minimal (a bit of bearing grease, the grease from the well greased bucket pins and the leaking hydraulic hose that is mandatory on all machines) would most likely not be a problem in the 50 Lbs that you receive. Though I still cannot help but wonder...
As for the problem of it dissolving Magnesium Carbonate I was reading in another forum that if the PH gets that low you have other far more serious problems. Once again I wonder and may ask the question in the water chemistry forum at RC to be sure.
Anyhow, they are probably right. If you are just starting out and are not the adventurous "lets see if this works" kind of person (and I do not know if anybody can really afford to be) then sticking with the proven substrate may be best. For myself I run no skimmer and will try almost anything (though I may not dump my used oil in the tank just to see "what if" [img]images/smiles/icon_biggrin.gif[/img] )
-Danny
O.K. I lied, I just ran a search RC. I know that Dr. Ron had given it his blessing (provided that it was the correct size) and it seems as though Randy Holmes-Farley has as well.
Here are two quotes when asked about it being O.K. "Dolomite, as you know, contians both calcium and magnesium carbonate. I don't really see a big problem with it, but maybe a little one. It's possible that as it slowly dissolves, the magnesium level may rise, and you might want to take a measurement of the magnesium once in a while to make sure it isn't rising too high.
I'd expect that routine water changes would keep it in check, and a big one would certainly correct it if for some reason the sand were dissolving fairly fast."
As well as "I'm on vacation right now and don't have my copy of Spotte's Captive Seawater Fishes, but I seem to recall him having an entire section covering the use of CaCO3 and MgCO3/CaCO3 mixtures (like dolomite). He concluded (if I recall correctly) that they became the same thing on their surfaces when exposed to seawater."
I still may not say that he recomends it, but he does not question the sanity of people who decide to give it a shot. If you want to read the whole thing then here is the link.
dolomite
[ 21 January 2002: Message edited by: dan150 ]</p>