Silica sand as an artificial control sediment in a 20 day Neanthes arenaceodentata toxicity test

The use of artificial control sediments in toxicity tests offers several advantages over field-collected control sediments, especially for laboratory-cultured organisms such as Neanthes arenaceodentata. Ten side-by-side trials were conducted using a field-collected sediment from West Beach, Whidbey Island, Washington State, USA and an artificial sediment composed of a silica quartz sand commonly used for masonry applications. After a 20-d exposure to sediment and clean overlying seawater, a similar biological response (as measured by the final average individual dry weight of Neanthes) was observed. The average individual dry weight was 14.77 +/- 3.83 and 14.70 +/- 3.57 mg/worm for the artificial and field-collected negative controls, respectively.