Southdown Sand as a Substitute?
- Thread starter benj420
- Start date
A
alti
Guest
$9.99 is pretty expensive for southdown. i paid $3.75.
hnf2k
Active Member
DONT GET SOUTHDOWN! THAT IS THE WORST MISTAKE I HAVE EVER MADE! THE STUFF SUCKS! YOUR TANK WILL REMAIN CLOUDY FOREVER! I DONT CARE WHAT ANYONE SAYS THE MONEY YOU SAVE IS NOT WORTH THE STRESS IT GIVES YOU. YOU WILL HAVE TO CHANGE YOUR PREFILTERS CONSTANTLY, YOUR TRICKLE PLATER FILTER CONSTANTLY. MY TANK HAS BEEN UP FOR ABOUT 4-5 MONTHS I WOULD GUESS NOW AND IT IS STILL CLOUDY. THE SAND IS TOO FINE. DONT WASTE YOUR TIME. DONT LISTEN TO ANYBODY. IM TELLING YOU SOUTHDOWN IS A HUGE MISTAKE.
hnf2k
Active Member
well being that novice150 posted the same question a while back, he said he only asked a few people, and me and a few others said it sucked. so i think your numbers are a little off. with all the money i've spent on my tank, southdown was the biggest waste. forget the 120 bucks on a uv that is too small for my tank. the 10 bucks i spent on southdown is the worst and biggest waste of money i spent. all the stress it has caused me is worse than spending an extra 100-200 bucks. and as long as he is asking for an opinion on the stuff i do feel it is necessary to go on a rant to try to stop someone from buying it. i dont wish what i have experienced with southdown on anyone else.
A
alti
Guest
ive used it on 3 tanks. no problems. i think jwtrojans math is off too. if you poll a thousand people you might find 2 that had a problem with it.
chainsaw5vent
Member
HNF@K sorry to hear that your experience w/ southdown was so poor. mine worked out fine. best price out in so cal currently is from a guy named "murray" who sells s/d for 15 bucks a bag.
benj420
Member
Slothy,
Yep, that's the place. Never been there before, but plan on going in the next few days when I have a chance. They have kind of limited hours. What did you think of their establishment?
Since you are also from the big mitten, do you know of any other places to get good bargains on stuff (sand or anything)? $10 for a bag doesn't seem to bad to me, but others have said that they can get it much cheaper in their states. The only other LFS in Kalamazoo is Deep Sea, which is rather limited on stock and displays of advanced setups.
Have you ever been to Pruess' Animal House (sp?) in Haslett? My personal favorite so far.
Yep, that's the place. Never been there before, but plan on going in the next few days when I have a chance. They have kind of limited hours. What did you think of their establishment?
Since you are also from the big mitten, do you know of any other places to get good bargains on stuff (sand or anything)? $10 for a bag doesn't seem to bad to me, but others have said that they can get it much cheaper in their states. The only other LFS in Kalamazoo is Deep Sea, which is rather limited on stock and displays of advanced setups.
Have you ever been to Pruess' Animal House (sp?) in Haslett? My personal favorite so far.
brooklyn johnny
Active Member
Here in Northern Virginia I get my Southdown for $3.74 per 50 pound bag. Myself and everyone in my club have been happy with it, and I would agree that the satisfaction from people using it is about as high as any other product in the industry. Yes it will cloud your water temporarily, but if your tank is cloudy after a matter of months that is due to reasons other than Southdown. I usually let a new tank run for a few days, allowing almost all particles to settle, then use filter floss to polish the water and pull out what is still in suspension. This is one of the few bargains in this hobby in my opinion, and can easily save you many hundreds of dollars. You save over 90%. About 7 cents a pound compared to about a dollar a pound, for a sand that is mined and processed from the same quarry. Southdown gets my vote. From the looks of it, it would be great to get a truckload of it and drive across country selling it to hobbyists. As Boomer said, if you can get it go for it. If you want fine sand, paying more for "aquarium grade" will not make your tank any less cloudy, unless you buy coarser sand.
jjboods
Member
I have the Southdown and love it!!! My tank was cloudy for 12 hours or less. I think if you put water in the tank and then dump the sand in, then you are $crewed! Put the sand in first and gently put the water after. I have about 110 pounds in my 55 and it looks great. I wouldn't do any less than that though.
broomer5
Active Member
If a tank is cloudy all the time, and the particles of substrate are ending up in the prefilters, flowing through the entire system - I'm afraid that there's something else going on in the tank.
Either you are keeping fish that are constantly disturbing the sandbed, you have too fast water circulation down near the bottom of the tank or you're always in the tank messing around with rockwork.
If you plan to keep burrowing or tail fan sweeping fish - you may want to look at another type of substrate, or go with more shallow a sand depth.
If you have too much current down there - then make some adjustments.
If you're constantly fiddling around in there - not much I can say about that.
Oolite and Southdown are very fine grain sands - and are perfect for sandbeds of various depths.
CaribSea Special reef grade sand or similar sands are a little more coarse in grainsize - and do not rise up into the tank near as much when disturbed.
Any sand WILL settle over time - but in my opinion, you should always consider what you plan to keep, and how you tank's going to be set up - when selecting any substrate.
Either you are keeping fish that are constantly disturbing the sandbed, you have too fast water circulation down near the bottom of the tank or you're always in the tank messing around with rockwork.
If you plan to keep burrowing or tail fan sweeping fish - you may want to look at another type of substrate, or go with more shallow a sand depth.
If you have too much current down there - then make some adjustments.
If you're constantly fiddling around in there - not much I can say about that.
Oolite and Southdown are very fine grain sands - and are perfect for sandbeds of various depths.
CaribSea Special reef grade sand or similar sands are a little more coarse in grainsize - and do not rise up into the tank near as much when disturbed.
Any sand WILL settle over time - but in my opinion, you should always consider what you plan to keep, and how you tank's going to be set up - when selecting any substrate.
slothy
Active Member
Lou_brakant and me went for a drive one day out that way (east sider here) and the place is out of a garage... so its not very big, but all his corals were nice... seemed though alot were not for sale.. i think keith (lou_brakant) paid 4.99 a bag if im not mistaking, but it was on sale.. Very nice owner thought, ended up buying a gorgorgain (sp?) and a arrow crab, both are doing very well.. Havent made to animal house yet.. heard all about it though
benj420
Member
The reason I asked for the differences is because I am following the Bullet Proof Reef examples on garf.org and the Carib-Sea is what they recommend. Their system also uses a plenum, will I have a problem with the finer grained southdown sand going through the screen? Should it still be OK, or should I go with a layer of coarse sand followed by the southdown, followed by LS? or just dump the plenum idea all together?
Since their site is a full set of directions from start to finish using one of the many, many ways to do this, and I am a novice, I want to stick to their directions as much as possible. For example, some people may say that using a filter is a must, or will work in place of a protein skimmer. This may or may not be true, but I'm too new at this to really know the differences myself. garf says protein skimmer only, so that's what I want to do.
So, the moral of the story is that I want to stick with the plenum idea if possible, but save some money on sand if it will be an adequate substitute. Make sense?
Since their site is a full set of directions from start to finish using one of the many, many ways to do this, and I am a novice, I want to stick to their directions as much as possible. For example, some people may say that using a filter is a must, or will work in place of a protein skimmer. This may or may not be true, but I'm too new at this to really know the differences myself. garf says protein skimmer only, so that's what I want to do.
So, the moral of the story is that I want to stick with the plenum idea if possible, but save some money on sand if it will be an adequate substitute. Make sense?
bang guy
Moderator
Originally posted by Benj420
or just dump the plenum idea all together?
Southdown is great stuff for those of us with patience. If you can get it I believe it is one of the best to house the variety of infauna needed for a healthy DSB.
For a 55 gal I would recommend you start with three 50# bags.
Guy