Estes Marine Sand

[cplawrence]

I haven't had much luck in my search for an aragonite sand, but when I was out, I found a pet store that was carrying Estes Marine sand at $10 for 25 lbs. It may be a lot more than if I could find it at a hardware store, but still quite a bit less than what I'd be paying for the CaribSea stuff. Has anyone had experience with their sand?
Thanks,
Chris

 

[cplawrence]

Assuming that I have not gotten any responses due to the fact that the question may seem rather stupid, I posed it becasue:
1) a search on here yielded only one mention in the SW forums
2) a Google search led to some threads that mentioned using this in FW tanks (one I saw indicated that it was a silicate based sand)
3) just the simple fact that is about half the cost of Aragalive made me wonder if this wasn't any good
Thanks again,
Chris

 

[kimberly]

I haven't seen that sand. But I posted about a different sand. There is a test you can do with vinegar to see if it is the right sand. Take a handful of the sand and pour vinegar on it. If it bubbles and dissolves it is the right sand. We had to kind of swirl the mixture around in order to get bubbles, but it worked.

My guess would be that your question wasn't stupid, but that no one here had any experience with it.

 

[Devilishturtles]

Ditto. I've never used Estes Marine Sand, beacuse I've always been able to find aragonite sand readily. $10 for 25 lbs is not a bad price at all, IMHO. As long as it's not super fine sand, I would say go for it.

Your question wasn't stupid at all!

 

[cplawrence]

Thanks for the replies. Forgive my ignorance, but what would the problem be with superfine sand?

 

[Devilishturtles]

Some people don't like it because it is easily stirred up. Thus...it can get into your powerheads more readily (and cause impellor and motor issues) and into filters and such. Personally, I like a bit of a larger grade sand. I used Caribsea's aragonite sand, topped with aragalive reef sand, and I love it.