Another Sand Question

[salty rick]

I can't find Southdown in my area. My Home Depot carries Bonsal playsand. My LFS carries the agronite sand but it is not as fine as the playsand or sand at the beach. First question, is there another brand of sand that will work like Southdown? Second question, will the coarser agronite sand at the LFS work in a DSB? I know it will be more expensive but what other alternative do I have?

 

[birdy]

A few people have been reporting that white silica sand is fine for salt tanks, there is a big debate on whether or not silica sand would result in a diatom bloom, but it is now thought that the silica cannot dissolve in the water we use in our tanks, so the major advantage in using an aragonite based sand is in it's buffering capabilities, which some people think is overrated anyway. This being said, my newly set up reef is filled with aragonite based sand I just didn't want to take any chances. Just today I set up a 30gal, with silica sand, it is going to be a FOWLR. I did have a little trouble finding fine white silica sand. All the
Home Depots and Lowes carried was a tan play sand. What I found was at a ACE Hardware, it is very fine white sand.
Also there was a post a few posts down that lists an article about silica based sand.

 

[coraltrapper5020]

I use 20% silica sand and the rest bio live argainate. Works great no algea blooms and my finger leather has dubbled in the two weeks i added the silica sand in my tank. I read on onther post with links that mircale mud it a comabnation of silica sand and other elements.