I've been doing some research on Southdown and just like everybody else on this BB, I have already basically given up on getting my hands on SD. But I am interested in the silica sand for sale by our local sand company in Burnaby called Target. They sell this sand called Lane Mountain Silica Sand and it looks pretty good for a DSB. The phsyical, chemical property analysis's link is:
http://www.targetproducts.com/catalo...s/lmsilsnd.pdf
and its in Adobe format. Take a look and give me your opinion on this product.
They have more products available for selection at
http://www.targetproducts.com/catalog/sands.htm
but it looks like the Lane Mountain sand is the best so far with property of 99.56% weight as Si02. It comes in 55/80/100/3000/3700 lb bags and its decribed as off-white/cream white in color. It looks like gradation LM 70 and/or LM 125 would be excellent for DSB.
I've sent them an email inquiring on pricing and hopefully they will point me to a local distributor. But I think if we get enough interest they can get us a bulk order. Even without the bulk order, I think silica sand itself is relatively inexpensive compared to the aragonite/carbonate based sands. And according to some experts, there really is not a difference unless you want to run aragonite/carbonate based sands in your calcium reactor.
CWLee