Rinse sand?

[Saint3402]

Do I need to rinse my dry live sand? If so, how will I know when I've rinsed enough?

 

[Henry405]

is it dry sand or live sand. If its dry rinse it, I'm not too sure on how to rinse sand. If its live, I believe the bag would say No rinse, but most people don't believe in live sand anyways so they would prob rinse it too. I bought live sand and did not rinse. I wish I didn't though because there's a lot of little shells, rocks, pieces of random stuff in my sand so it looks kind of dirty

 

[thominil]

Stick it in a bucket and let water run through it until the water overflowing from the side of the bucket is reasonably clear. Not washing could result in a cloudy mess for days.

 

[hackteck]

Stick it in a bucket and let water run through it until the water overflowing from the side of the bucket is reasonably clear. Not washing could result in a cloudy mess for days.

I had to learn that the hard way lol

 

[uscamaro]

I had to learn that the hard way lol

So did I!


The best way to rinse dry sand is to fill a 5g bucket 1/3 of the way and add water. Use your hand to reach in and stir around the sand. After about a minute of doing this, pour out the cloudy water (slowly so you don't lose a lot of sand), and then refill. Do this until the water you're pouring out is clear. Repeat until the desired amount of sand is clean.

*If you don't rinse the sand enough, you're subjecting yourself to a cloudy tank for at least 2-3 days. The silt that was floating around making the water cloudy will slowly settle on the rocks and sand like dust. If you make any movement in the water close to this "dust", get yourself ready for another day or two of cloudy water. Don't be lazy and you'll thank yourself later... trust me!

 

[Saint3402]

Thank you all. I've already had the tank set up once but when I went to gravel vac, it made my whole tank milky. I'm not a noob at using the vac so I was like [mod edit]! I know what I'm doing after work lol.

 

[amdninjaboy]

Like uscamaro said, I just did mine on the weekend. I had sugar fine aragonite sand and rinsed it in a 5 gal bucket.. water was slightly cloudy for about 2 hrs and that was it.. Its alot better to do it that way than have a tank full of floatys for a few days plus if you have a sump all the silt will work its way down there if you have any pumps running..

Shane.

 

[Saint3402]

Awesome, I just have bioballs and a protien skimmer in the sump... I had it goin for two weeks and any time the sand was touched the tank was filthy. Thanks.

 

[Saint3402]

I just put my water in. Had a small plate on the sand so the water could run off, didn't get cloudy at all... Just put my salt in, waiting to test it.

 

[SithAquarist]

worst is black sand you'll be polishing water for a few days even after a good rinse...

 

[Henry405]

worst is black sand you'll be polishing water for a few days even after a good rinse...

What do you mean by polishing water? I'm planning to do a tank for my uncle and he wants black sand so I'm very interested

 

[SithAquarist]

What do you mean by polishing water? I'm planning to do a tank for my uncle and he wants black sand so I'm very interested

Well few things with black make it a bit time consuming. Turns water grey and you gotta run a filter to get the suspended particles out. Like polishing fine silver. Hense polish you're water. Most natual black sand is volcanic and a bit magnetic, and brittle so the dust is real fine. Just gotta be patient. Black makes a slick tank tho. Be more then happy to answer any other questions tho all but one of my tanks use a black sand from hawaii

 

[Henry405]

Could you post a couple pictures? Also, is the process of rinsing it the same?

Sorry for going off topic xD

 

[SithAquarist]

Only camera I got is my droidx and it is next to useless taking pics through glass. But rinse it the same maybe just a bit longer always seems to still have dust. I put a hose in the bottom of a 5gal bucket and pack the sand in leaving like 8 inches and let the water filter up and over.

 

[uscamaro]

Only camera I got is my droidx and it is next to useless taking pics through glass.

Say whaaaat?! My X takes great pictures. It's no fancy $1k Nikon, but it's still great for a cell phone. You may want to get yours fixed.

example:

 

[Mr. Limpet]

My Epic 4G shoots at 10.5 mp, which is the same as my Nikon D80 and is does a lot better than the D80 at aqua shots lol.

 

[SithAquarist]

Say whaaaat?! My X takes great pictures. It's no fancy $1k Nikon, but it's still great for a cell phone. You may want to get yours fixed.

example:

Gee man that crystal clear I think its the light conditions I have around the tank. My house has horrible ambient light makes stuff orange lol. Takes awesome pics when im anywhere but my house...lol