FlyTrapCare Forums

I am still searching and reading information for a good source of silica sand for my potting mixture, and read recently that vinegar is one way to test the sand. If it bubbles, it is not good for the plants.

Anyone know if this is an accurate way to test? I have one bag of sand with small quartz silica particles in it, but it bubbled when I poured a small amount of vinegar on it, so it confused me because I thought that was best for the plants..

That means it’s not pure quartz

To answer the question, it’s not a good way to test for appropriate sand. If vinegar bubbles, that just beans the sand has carbonates in it (mostly limestone and dolomite, but maybe others). That can miss lots and lots of other things that effect carnivorous plants poorly. Pure quartz sand would not cause bubbles, but quartz sand with many other things added to it other than carbonates wouldn’t bubble either.

The best way to test sand is to rinse it and measure the TDS. It should be very nearly 0.

bananaman wrote: The best way to test sand is to rinse it and measure the TDS. It should be very nearly 0.

Ah okay.. I've got a TDS meter in my Amazon basket I had been considering, so there we go, Ill purchase that today!

So.. then, is it okay to rinse the sand (with clean or distilled water, I assume), take a reading several times, and if as close to 0 PPM as possible then I could use it? I was also concerned about drainage, but I was planning on making a 50/50 mixture with peat moss..

Be carefull, dolomite rearely reacts with winegar. It reacts weeery little with 10 % HCl let alone vinegar. Also there could be other things in your sand that leach minerals like feldspar, reactive mica and other that will not react to winegar. There is no shure way of saying you sand is quartz only unless it is stated on the declaration. If it is white to brownish and looks clear under a magnifier it is most probably quartz.