TerraForums Venus Flytrap, Nepenthes, Drosera and more talk
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One occasionally sees (recycled) crushed glass for sandblasting (to be used instead of, well, sand).
Has anybody tried this instead of sand for growing carnivores?
I seem to recall bluemax was using recycled bottle glass. Glass is just silica even though it has added compounds for color. Even so it should be inert enough to be safe.
I used recycled glass pool filter sand and I recommend it, but I can't vouch for other products. Even so it is good to rinse it, and this is not hard to do being as it is quite clean in appearance and relatively coarse. I can't say what, if any, effect the sharpness of the grains has on plants but I haven't seen any, at least that I can identify. Perhaps jostling together in a bag is enough to grind off any really sharp edges.
Nice that Fred did some research and listed the results on the paving sand - and too bad it comes with so much unwanted material in it. I do like the low price. I pay around $20US for 50 lbs of the pool filter stuff. It lasts me for at least a year at my rate of use.
I got some of the glass filter sand on bluemax's recommendation since I couldn't find any silica sand around here. It's not cheap, but I haven't had any problems with it. It's worn enough that there are no sharp edges - I haven't cut myself mixing soil bare-handed - so I doubt it could harm the plants any more than regular silica sand could.
I have noticed that this particular brand Vitroclean seems like it needs rinsing. The water becomes quite cloudy when rinsing. I don't know if it's just air bubbles from blasting the sand with the hose or if there's actually some sort of contaminants. Contaminants being present would be a bit strange though considering it's supposed to be used for cleaning pool water.
I don't have any experience with the crushed glass sands. But as far as sandblasting sand, there is also black diamond blasting grit. That is made up primarily of coal slag which is inert, it's used in fish tanks as a substrate and doesn't effect the pH at all. The one thing to look out for is the grade. There are a few different ones from super fine to coarse.
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