Play Sand MAJOR discovery!!!!

[little_d]

Walmart in NorCal here got the sand, exact same design on the bag but look closely and it wasn't manufactured or packed by old castle. Also, it's brown vs white so I didn't even want it for my tank, although it was good for my diy rock

 

[Macrosill]

I have ten bags of the Garden Basics sand. It passed the vinegar test. It is packaged by Old Castle in their PA plant. It may differ if it is packaged at a different location. I did call Old Castle and asked their lab if this sand is silica based or not. I was told they lost their supplier of the aragonite sand and that this is indeed silica sand. I guess if it was packaged a few months ago it is aragonite and if it was recently packaged it is the replacement silica. This may explain the confusion with this sand.

 

[Kam]

I read on reef central that just about all sand "can" pass the vinegar test, including silica sand. As I understand it aragonite sand will completely disolve if you keep adding vinegar. I re-did the test and after the initial fizz could not get the sand to fizz again after adding more vinegar.

I am going to go to the LFS and buy a small amount of aragonite sand to see how it reacts to the vinegar test.

 

[Kam]

Today I bought some Carib-Sea sand from the LFS. I paid $22 for a 15lbs bag (ouch).

The reaction of the K-Mart brand sand and the Carib-Sea was 100% the same.

I used equal amounts of each sand in equal sized cups and added equal amounts of vinegar. After the fiz stopped I added more vinegar and it fizzed more although not as much as the first time. I added vinegar a third time and they each fizzed the same agin.

I am now comfortable that the Sand I have is going to work in my tank.

 

[revhtree]

Great job Kam!! Thanks for all the investigation...

 

[Brenden]

I think the main reason it fizzed more the first time is because it is dissolving the smaller dust particles I think if you let it sit long enough most of it would dissolve. The Garden basic sand I bought at walmart only bubbled a little with a crack or pop here and there. The durascape sand I ended up with fizzed over the cup when I added vinegar. Big difference

 

[zenn]

I found some of the Garden Basics sand at my local wal-mart here in Lincoln. I did the vinegar test and no fizz Oh well, it was worth a shot i guess. The package said something about it being packaged in Wisconsin.