can just any playsand be used?

[sileighty]

i was at a local home depot today and thought i would look for southdown play sand. Turns out that they didnt have any at the store, but they had a different kind of sterilized playsand. I dont really know why southdown is preferred, could someone help shed some light on this for me?

 

[ny reef]

The foundation of your tank is the substrate and the Live rock you put in there I would not take shortcuts it might hurt you later I would use substrate that was approved even if it cost a little more...But thats just me..Good Luck.

 

[reeferkeeper]

It isnt the sterility that is the reason people use southdown. Southdown is used because it doesnt have the silica that many other play sands have. High silica may cause a diatom outbreak. HTH

 

[sileighty]

cool, thats why i was asking 1st instead of trying it out.

 

[ken s]

as posted before, southdown is in easton pennsylvania

 

[marc42fe]

I blew it early on before I knew the dif. I'm too far into it now though. I'll keep you posted. I also mixed in a 25# of really cool sand from a source that I will take to the grave, I would have done my whole tank in this stuff if I could have gotten away with it.

 

[trebor126]

Use Quikrete Kiddie Play Sand. The sand is Quartz based, so it is inert and will not effect your water. The sand is great.. Is is fine grain, like Southdown, and is whitish in color. Looks very beautiful in a tank. Goto to the Fish discussion board. There has been a lot of posts on this, and one member has a picture of his tank with this sand. $2.50 / 50lbs. bag..

 

[jodeman]

The bottom 1 inch of my dsb is a brownish colored quickrete play sand. I have 3 inches of regular live sand on top of it. It gives a neat looking layered effect, and hasn't seemed to cause any problems.