Suthdown - tropical sand - ammonia/nitrites

I am seting up new fish tank with DSB using Southdown sand.

I have read recommendations to not wash the sand, just pour
it from the bag to the tank. I understand this is to keep
the finest particles there for animals - I did as suggested...

When I poured water I got white milk effect with foam on top
Waited couple of days and it is still deep white milk :-)

When I have done it couple of years ago I do not remember
if I washed the sand or not in the bucket... probably I did.
Anyway... last time it did not take so long for it to settle.

There is more to it than just milky color... The sand is dirty.
I have measured about 0.50mg/l nitrites! No ammonia, but it
must have been there before... There is no life in the
no live rock, no live sand - just dry sand and "live water"
from the other fish tank... So the only living thing is the
bacteria from the other reef tank...

Yesterday, since it was milky anyway and I noticed nitrites
I decided to mix the sand to allow dirt from the bottom
layers to surface and become processed by bacteria...
I mixed the sand with my hand - what I noticed, there is
about 1/8" layer of whiter silt settling on the surface
of more yellowish sand...

Conclusion:
This sand is dirty and probably needs to be washed before use :-)

I would always wash any sand unless its the wet packed type or sand I
collected myself out of the ocean. In time any sand is going to break
downand give fines, and the last thing I want is all that silty fine
stuff that always has the propensity to cloud up...Just normal
shipping and handling of bags of the sand (softer and less dense than
silica types) will create lots of fines and dust in the bags alone,
which really needs to be removed. 99% of the time, any sand I have
used (all proper marine tank stuff) once wahed or dumped out of the
bag itself if wet packed, created a relatively clear appearance within
hours or no more than a day once it was added to a tank.

There are two schools of thought on the use of this infamous southdown
sand......those for it and speak highly of it and those that do not
recomend it if other sand is available..I belong to the later myself,
after seeing some pics of Southdown after a few months of use.

I probably stated previously my friend runs a LFS (marine fish only)
and he also has a maitenace section that maintains setups for
commercial establishments and also rents tanks out to places like
doctors offices etc........We bought 2 pallet loads of this southdown
sand and used it initially. On a few tanks he was getting all kinds of
weird parameters and later on after they got to normal ranges, he was
getting all kinds of strange growths and stains occuring......He found
out it was the actual sand itself. This sand was mot bagged and
collected for aquarium use it was bagged and collected to be be used
for making mortar and concrete cement. The area it is collected form
has a known high metallic content, and the sand itself is not
processed to remove any small particles etc from it that contain
metals nor is precautions made to ensure none of the processing
equipment does not add any unwanted content to the sand either
(crushers, sieves, etc). to me its about like going to wal mart and
buying a bag of crushed limestone to use since its fine like sand,
but its nowhere close to being totally suitable for a marine tank. He
also noticed it had unusually long cycle times, as compared to the
commonly available sands that is marketed for aquarium use.

At a later date he simply placed about 50# of this sand in a tank with
freshwater and allowed it to circulate.....Soon small brownish red
stains started to appear.........it was from iron content in the sand.
He had to eventually drain out his customers tanks and refill them
using sand other than southdown....He currently (last I seen outside
his back door of the shop anyhow) has over a pallet of the stuff
setting outside his shop for a long time now, and even in the bags you
can see clumps of mineral buildup and reddish looking stains and
growths. I took perhaps 1/2 a pallet (bout 15 to 20 bags) of the
stuff as he wanted it gone and used it under some brick
pavers.....works good for that...

Southdown some swear by it others swear at it.......Another fellow on
another forum had to buy a pallet of it from HD as his local store did
not carry it....It was ordered in from another store and had to pay
the shiping / freight costs to have it delivered to his local
store...He too had problems with the sand. Yet another drove close to
500 miles round trip to pickup a load of it from a HD store, and he
too had nothing but troubles that went away once he changed the
southdown out of his tank.....To me its just not worth fooling with.

While Southdown is almost entirely carbonaceous, very little silicate
content there is always that chance of unwanted junk in it as well, so
at the least I would wash it very very thouroughly before usiing it.
Yea I may be making a statement contrary to the way I started this
reply, but if I was to use it, I would wash it, a few times at
minimum. Lots of folks some of whom are well known in the sal****er
world give it a thumbs up, and some a thumbs half way or fully down.
And I belive this is because its simply quarried, and processed
without any real inspectins as to its full content, so lots of it may
vary and its the luck of the draw.... I use a lot of sand from the
Gulf of Mexico, and its far from being carbonaceous in nature and its
primarily silica based, and it works fine. I seem to think my large
amounts of live rock make up for the buffering that the silica sands
do not provide.


On Sun, 29 Jan 2006 10:37:01 -0600, "Pszemol"
wrote:
I am seting up new fish tank with DSB using Southdown sand.

I have read recommendations to not wash the sand, just pour
it from the bag to the tank. I understand this is to keep
the finest particles there for animals - I did as suggested...

When I poured water I got white milk effect with foam on top
Waited couple of days and it is still deep white milk :-)

When I have done it couple of years ago I do not remember
if I washed the sand or not in the bucket... probably I did.
Anyway... last time it did not take so long for it to settle.

There is more to it than just milky color... The sand is dirty.
I have measured about 0.50mg/l nitrites! No ammonia, but it
must have been there before... There is no life in the
no live rock, no live sand - just dry sand and "live water"
from the other fish tank... So the only living thing is the
bacteria from the other reef tank...

Yesterday, since it was milky anyway and I noticed nitrites
I decided to mix the sand to allow dirt from the bottom
layers to surface and become processed by bacteria...
I mixed the sand with my hand - what I noticed, there is
about 1/8" layer of whiter silt settling on the surface
of more yellowish sand...

Conclusion:
This sand is dirty and probably needs to be washed before use :-)

--
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( @ @ )
-----------oOOo(_)oOOo---------------


oooO
---------( )----Oooo----------------
\ ( ( )
\_) ) /
(_/
The original frugal ponder ! Koi-ahoi mates....

Hi Roy,

Some say fine particles will bound together when the bacteria film
start to build up... I remember, last time I used it, it settled down faster.
But I washed the sand then... I think. Now it looks worse...
I can wait - this it not a problem... the tank is starting with no animals.

I am not concerned with stains - we cannot be sure it was from
iron content in the sand - it could be simple bacteria, algae etc.
Acording to what the manufacturer states on the bag, this is the sand
collected in Caribbean. So the sand is most likely of ocean deposits
origin (if not collected dirrectly from the ocean). It should not contain
land based minerals like iron ore etc... It should be just ocean deposits.

Now when I think about, ammonia/nitrites should not be a surprise!
The manufacturer stated the sand is sterilized, but not that it is clean :-)
If the sand is not washed, and it is most likely not, it will contain dead
organic content which will disintegrate due to the bacteria action and
create nitrites I am measuring. So everything is on the way to be good...

I will continue this dead-sand "curing" process and I will let you know
what happens. I am still waiting for the show tank I have ordered...
So when the tank arrives I will have to move the sand from the old
aquarium it is curing right now to the new one - during this process
I will try to not disturb the sand too much to not let the silt out again :-)

Give it a little while for bacteria to get going and it will clear up.
The fact that it's taking a while to clear shows it's very fine particles.
And down the road that will be a plus for ya. It is frustrating
and worrysome. But it will clear up for you.

Pszemol wrote:



I will continue this dead-sand "curing" process and I will let you know
what happens. I am still waiting for the show tank I have ordered...
So when the tank arrives I will have to move the sand from the old
aquarium it is curing right now to the new one - during this process
I will try to not disturb the sand too much to not let the silt out
again :-)


--
Ric Seyler
Online Racing: RicSeyler
GPL Handicap 6.35

http://www.pcola.gulf.net/~ricseyler
remove –SPAM- from email address
--------------------------------------
"Homer no function beer well without."
- H.J. Simpson

"RicSeyler" wrote in message . ..
Give it a little while for bacteria to get going and it will clear up.
The fact that it's taking a while to clear shows it's very fine particles.
And down the road that will be a plus for ya. It is frustrating
and worrysome. But it will clear up for you.

This is my plan at this point, Ric. I am going to wait and see what happens.
I will probably put there some piece of base live rock from a different
fish tank to speed things up... and maybe a couple of blue-legged hermits.
I plan to feed these little fellows and hope they will feed the bacteria action
with their feces... ;-)

Have you read anywhere about temperature of sand in regards to DSB ?
When I was mixing the sand with my bare hand I have noticed the surface
is warm, but the lower layers of sand are very cold - are there any problems
related with this issue and did anybody try to solve them using heater cables ?

Recently when I was swimming at Hervey Bay I discovered that if I dug my
toes into the sand up to my ankles my toes were in very cold sand. The
water temp at the time was disgustingly warm, almost warmer than my skin
temp.

Pszemol wrote:
"RicSeyler" wrote in message
. ..

Give it a little while for bacteria to get going and it will clear up.
The fact that it's taking a while to clear shows it's very fine
particles.
And down the road that will be a plus for ya. It is frustrating
and worrysome. But it will clear up for you.


This is my plan at this point, Ric. I am going to wait and see what
happens.
I will probably put there some piece of base live rock from a different
fish tank to speed things up... and maybe a couple of blue-legged hermits.
I plan to feed these little fellows and hope they will feed the bacteria
action
with their feces... ;-)

Have you read anywhere about temperature of sand in regards to DSB ?
When I was mixing the sand with my bare hand I have noticed the surface
is warm, but the lower layers of sand are very cold - are there any
problems
related with this issue and did anybody try to solve them using heater
cables ?

Pszemol wrote:

"RicSeyler" wrote in message
. ..

Give it a little while for bacteria to get going and it will clear up.
The fact that it's taking a while to clear shows it's very fine
particles.
And down the road that will be a plus for ya. It is frustrating
and worrysome. But it will clear up for you.


This is my plan at this point, Ric. I am going to wait and see what
happens.
I will probably put there some piece of base live rock from a different
fish tank to speed things up... and maybe a couple of blue-legged
hermits.
I plan to feed these little fellows and hope they will feed the
bacteria action
with their feces... ;-)

Have you read anywhere about temperature of sand in regards to DSB ?
When I was mixing the sand with my bare hand I have noticed the surface
is warm, but the lower layers of sand are very cold - are there any
problems
related with this issue and did anybody try to solve them using heater
cables ?

Never heard anything Pro or Con about lower level of DSP being a
different temp.
But you DO want that oxygen-free area at the bottom of the DSB.

--
Ric Seyler
Online Racing: RicSeyler
GPL Handicap 6.35

http://www.pcola.gulf.net/~ricseyler
remove –SPAM- from email address
--------------------------------------
"Homer no function beer well without."
- H.J. Simpson

"miskairal" mehiding@Oz wrote in message u...
Recently when I was swimming at Hervey Bay I discovered that if I dug my
toes into the sand up to my ankles my toes were in very cold sand. The
water temp at the time was disgustingly warm, almost warmer than my skin
temp.

Check this out:
http://www.marinedepot.com/FORUMS/Topic24235-11-1.aspx
How far away from the shore have you been swiming in Hervey Bay?

"RicSeyler" wrote in message .. .
Never heard anything Pro or Con about lower level of DSP being a
different temp.
But you DO want that oxygen-free area at the bottom of the DSB.

Yes, oxygen-free is something different. I am talking about the temperature.

"RicSeyler" wrote in message .. .
But you DO want that oxygen-free area at the bottom of the DSB.

I have done some more reading about freshwater heating cables
and now I know what you were talking about: freshwater folks want
to encourage convection water currents using heaters. Warmer
water circulates to the upper layers of the substrate inviting colder
water to the bottom layers... This way they avoid oxygen-free areas.

Thanks for mentioning this, Ric! Now I need to do more thinking ;-)