Southdown sand/marble...

[shep]

I have been reading alot about this lately. Is this truly a safe alternative to sand or not? And what is southdown sand? If this is a safe alternative I may be pissed due to the 120lbs of CaribSea live sand I bought and paid almost as much to have shipped.

 

[cboyfan2020]

Southdown is a company that produced a Calcium based sand for use in landscaping and playsand boxes. It was sold at Home depot's exclusively or sold straight from the company in pallets. It is a sand very similar if not the same as CaribSea which is why it is so sought after because it cost like $5 at local HD. I believe they got bought out by a company called Old Castle and not sure if they still have agreement with HD or not. I have the contact info for the company if you are interested in get a pallet or two but it is expensive. Usually people buy by the pallet and sell it to fellow reefers for what it cost.....$15 around me but still cheaper than $25 for a 40lb bag of Carib Sea. it is also very small in grain size which is good for DSB's.

 

[jharring]

Southdown is the same as Carib-Sea. They both come from the same mine in the Bahamas, however, carib sea has a non-compete agreement with the producer, Marcona Ocean Industries. What this means is that Marcona cannot sell to anyone that wants to use or sell this sand as Aquarium sand. It is a pretty big scam and Marcona actually produces over 3000 tons of sand 27/7 and sells it internationally. They mainly sell it for cement, glass, and agricultureal uses. So Carib-Sea was pretty sly by being the only company in the world to be able to sell this stuff. I have seen other products out there now so maybe the non-compete agreement is being challenged. Hopefully this helped.