Does Sand Blasting Stone come in black or dark gray? I've use number 1 and 3
size sand blasting stones , can get a 50lb bag for like $20. I had good luck with laying a layer of Latrite and capping it with a mix of both sands and grew everything ounce it aged .
A pretty common substrate is the coal slag blasting grit. usually something like 'black diamond', 'black beauty', 'black blast' or whatever. seems to work pretty well if you can find it at a supplier near you.
I don't know the grit sizes off hand, but I'm sure folks will drop in and let you know what works for them.
Otherwise, Google sandblasting supply and look in your local yellowpages results as well. Make a few calls and I'm sure you can find what you are looking for.
I use Black Beauty blasting grit thanks to recommendations from here. It is primarily black with some green mixed in.
I have a local store and was looking at there web site, How is there size compared to Eco Compleat ? Does it holds the plants down alright? Do you have a pic of your tank sub.?
I am not familiar with Eco Complete, personally. Maybe someone else could help you there. 20-40 is coarse sand-like. I hope these pix give you an idea.
I rinsed it very briefly. That shouldn't make a difference one way or the other though. I could have just dumped it in and let the dust settle. There wasn't that much of it.
I just picked up 3 bags for my 125. I started to wash the black diamond tonight, I could have skipped this step I think, but thought it was a good idea. It also very slow going with the washing.
I think 3 bags should be enough for my setup as I have 1.5 inches of miracle gro.
"Washed and ready to use" on the package means it's ready to sandblast your components...not clean to aquarium standards.
I rinse it thoroughly - lots of oil residue and very minute prticulate. Paint screens (as in a screen filter to rid paint of lumps) works really well for this. 5gal size by the way.
Must have been 10 years ago there were some posts on the net about Black Diamond having 2 issues. Both of them connected with the production of the stuff which results in bags with varying composition:
1. Sharp edges of the particles.
Cories cut their whiskers on them.
2. Toxic ingredients whose toxicity varies depending on the source of the material.
But these were old posts, 10 years ago. I'm sure now things are clean, organic and always low-fat :icon_smil
Will this compact after time? It's a little fine to my taste , I was looking for something more coarse like #3-#5 The only pace I saw here was at couple of pet stores and they are going for $20. for Tex Blast , I just can't fine it else where.
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