Reef Crystals Pure White...

[Congaken]

Anyone have an opinion on Reef Crystals pure white aragonite sand...any problems or benefits compared to other bagged sand...will calcium and other elements be available as with other aragonite...thinking of it for my 65 fowlr...also any leads on black, natural aragonite?

 

[Diesel]

Not to my knowledge but lets go viral...........[HASHTAG]#reefsquad[/HASHTAG]

 

[Sabellafella]

From what ive seen i wouldnt buy it, if it is indeed aragonite yes, it would have buffering capacity but theres alot of extremely negative reviews about it especially in the whole marketing aspect. Why not go with caribsea or nutresea?

 

[Sabellafella]

Black sand looks great, the only downside would be the few magnetic grains could get stuck in a cleaning magnet.

 

[ksc]

Sand has no buffering capabilities in a reef tank.

 

[Sabellafella]

Sand has no buffering capabilities in a reef tank.

How so?

 

[ksc]

PH is too high. You could put it in your calcium reactor though.

 

[ksc]

PH is too high. You could put it in your calcium reactor though.

http://www.advancedaquarist.com/2011/10/chemistry

Okay, so I imagine that at this point you might be wondering if there's any good reason to pick things that are made of aragonite over things made of calcite, or vice versa. It's been said a million times that aragonite helps buffer aquarium water, or helps maintain calcium concentrations, while other (carbonate) substrates do not. However, to the best of my knowledge this simply isn't true.

I have yet to see any solid evidence that using aragonitic materials provides any advantage over using calcitic materials in an aquarium. And, in the words of the chemist-aquarist-author Randy Holmes-Farley "calcium carbonate will not dissolve in the water column of normal marine aquaria". Some may dissolve within a deep sand bed where water chemistry changes from the top of the bed to the bottom, but this is unlikely to have any significant effect on overall water quality. So, I wouldn't waste a minute of my time worrying about whether or not something is made of one or the other, or of dolomite either for that matter. Still, I hope this has helped you to understand the carbonates and many of the terms we see that are associated with them, and why calcium additions to reef aquariums are so important, too.

 

[Sabellafella]

PH is too high. You could put it in your calcium reactor though.

Lolol, i guess it depends on how old your sandbed is or how deep. If you take a ph probe and shove it down into the bottom the ph is low enuff to melt media. So you can sortoff say it does, i mean personally i cant tell.

 

[ksc]

Well, I've had a 6" sandbed for about 8 years now and it still measures about 6".

 

[Congaken]

Black sand looks great, the only downside would be the few magnetic grains could get stuck in a cleaning magnet.

I mean natural dark or black sand...I've used the black, magnetic stuff in an acrylic fresh water tank...its a problem...I want natural reef sand from someplace that has it...Hawaii?

 

[Sabellafella]

I mean natural dark or black sand...I've used the black, magnetic stuff in an acrylic fresh water tank...its a problem...I want natural reef sand from someplace that has it...Hawaii?

I was about to say go to longisland they got some purple sand there but your far out!! Ill see what i can find online

 

[Congaken]

I was about to say go to longisland they got some purple sand there but your far out!! Ill see what i can find online

are you talking about purple beach sand?...of course it needs to be aragonite...Carabe sea has one, but its 2X the price of the regular...let me know if you find something...Thanks...

 

[Sabellafella]

Yea long island beach =) but alot of the different sands are all expensive, try tropic eden.