Washing sand

[Fishies86]

Ok, I've been wondering for ages, how do you clean sand before putting it in a tank?

With the gravel in my tank, I put it in a sieve and flushed it with water. How do I rinse sand?

 

[BigJim]

Put a few pounds of sand in a bucket, run water into it, and stir it with your hands. It takes a while, but the light silt should float to the top and run out as the water overflows. I've heard using a pillowcase as a sieve works too, but I haven't tried that.

Some sand is dirtier than others. My play sand required a lot of rinsing while my Quickrete Medium sand and Black Blast blasting compound required little to no rinsing.

 

[mfdrookie516]

Yep.. or you can do the lazy method like me. Put it in the tank, and add 6-8" of water, stir it up real good, drain, repeat until it stays clear even when stirring vigorously. I've used my method countless times... Just makes more sense when you're doing this on a tank that requires more sand than a 5g bucket holds... my opinion of course.

Disclaimer: You DO NOT want to do this if you use the old school water changing method (ie using buckets to tote water back and forth. This would be ridiculous without a python or similar off brand product.

 

[uscamaro]

Put a few pounds of sand in a bucket, run water into it, and stir it with your hands. It takes a while, but the light silt should float to the top and run out as the water overflows. I've heard using a pillowcase as a sieve works too, but I haven't tried that.

Some sand is dirtier than others. My play sand required a lot of rinsing while my Quickrete Medium sand and Black Blast blasting compound required little to no rinsing.

This is the method I used. Just keep adding, stirring, then draining water until the water becomes clear. I rinsed only 5x and it put it in my tank and it was cloudy for 48hrs. Then I read I was suppose to wait until it was clear.