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. © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Environ Toxicol 16: 172–176, 2001