ok substrate test inprogress.

[StirCrazy]

ok Thanks to Bruce I have a small baggie of caribsea sugar sand to compare againt the dolomite.

first impressions are that sugar sand was a lot corser than I thought with no visable sediment (powder size particles) whare the dolomite is by my guess ~ 50% powder and the rest larger upto the size of the sugar sand. the sugarsand is grey and the dolomite is as white as you can get [img]images/smiles/icon_smile.gif[/img]

now I put some dolomite in water last night at 5pm and today it was clear enuf to read through (only a slight haze) and the PH has stabalizeed at 7.8.

today at 6pm I loaded two wine glasses (one eith sugar sand and one with dolomite and added water from my fresh water tank (PH 6.2, GH less than 20, and KH less than 10) so this being acidic I expect a quick raise in PH. this will alow me to compare the buffering capacity of both also.
another thing I noticed is that when the sugar sand is moist it seams to pack togeather and stick whare the dolomite stayed free moving you can see by the clumping in the glass in the second pic.

dolomite is on the right in every pic.
see how white it looks


side view


ok for this one I added the water and stired with a spoon for a minuit


the stiring was done at 6pm today and I will test the PH in a few hours and update then

Steve