sand and aragonite ?????????

[jeffro63]

ok folks heres one to pick everyone's brain
right now i have southdown sand in my 55 gallon with 46 lbs of liverock.
today i got a 20 lb. bag of arag-alive. The guy at the lfs told me i could just dump it on top of my southdown, but i was wondering if the sand should be removed and replaced with with the aragonite sand or can it be mixed and work out fine ?
thanks for everyones opinion in advance
Jeff

 

[swnewb]

Just add it to what you already have. It will seed the Southdown turning it into livesand.

 

[jeffro63]

see what i'm most worried about is, the southdown sand is very dusty and clouds up anytime something touches the bottom and i'm trying to eliminate the dusty part. Will the aragonite help keep the dust down ?
thanx
Jeff

 

[guineawhop]

i'm not exactly sure what southdown sand is but if it is very fine sand then it's fine to just mix it like swnewb said. as far as the cloudyness goes it will help a little but if you're that worried just get rid of it and put all live sand in there

 

[thomas712]

Well that southdown silt will eventurally wind up deeper and you will find larger particles take its place. If you like you can add that other sand anyway you like. I'd try a small cupfull on the sandbed just to see if you like it first. Just don't add more than a 1/2 inch layer to a well established sandbed, you don't want to burry your infauna alive.
Thomas

 

[nm reef]

Southdown sand is "aragonite" sand...just a much finer grain sized. The arag-live you want to add is the same type sand with a larger grain size...plus the arag-live has bacterias in place which is what makes it 'live".
The southdown will cloud up and cause a minor storm whenever disturbed until it also is covered in bacterias which will weight it down....and even after it is well established it can still cloud up if disturbed.
Adding the larger grain sized sand on top of your southdown will probably be fine but I wouldn't add too much too quickly.:thinking: