about this "replenishing" ability of caribsea .. it is only partialy true. it has been showen again and again that it will only buffer the water satafactory if the ph drops so low that you would most likely lose your critters first..
another test using caribsea, and a few other types including silica and lime showed that a tank left on its own with no additives added will crash in both alk and Ca. the silical tank crashed after 1 month, the lime after 2.5 months and the Caribsea after 3 months.. so yes there is some buffering going on but is it enuf to rely on??? no..
I was looking for the cheep way originaly but after exparamenting with lime and some other types I decided to bite the bullert and buy 10 bags of caribsea.. well it was actualy the one Jason is circulating around for 1/2 the price. there are several other things to concider as RossB has pointed out.. but you can add to your conciderations that if you get sanblasting sand make sure it is 100% silica sand, some have things like fieldspar and such in them which will poisen your tank..
There are a couple good sand threads on this board and on others. several people use silican and have good luck with it, others use arganite and like it.. I bought the arganite as I figured I had spent several thousand bucks already what was another 200.00
JMHO
Steve
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