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Black Beauty Sand
I found a supplier of black beauty sand. He is trying to get rid of
the stuff and will sell it to me for $5 /100lb bag. This seemed too good
too be true, so I did some investigating to see if it will be safe.
Black beauty sand is actually Metallic Slag from the manufacturing
of copper. It is described as 32-45% SiO2; 25-33% Cao + Mg0; 24-35% Fe0.
Wondering if the FeO would be a problem, I put about a teaspoon in
a very small jar with some water, shook it up, then tested the Iron content
using a seachem test kit. The results of the first test was 1.0 ppm. I
repeated the test and got 2.0 ppm. This is about 10 to 20 times too much!
Last week I put about 5lbs of the same stuff (purchased from a
local pet shop) on top of the existing sand of a 30 gallon tank with
discus. ( I know I'm doing things a little backwards). So far nothing has
died! (The tank tests about 0.01 ppm (but I did add fertilizer with Iron
last week also))
My questions:
Has any one been using this stuff?
Is there too much Iron leaching out to use it pure as a
.. substrate?
Does it have any potential as a gravel additive?
Should I remove the 5lbs from my discus tank and do a water
.. change
as soon as possible?
Thanks
Larry