Washing out

[Lippy]

I was just wondering if anyone had any unique ways or idea's on wasing gravel of sand before using it in your tank?

 

[jwh0818]

I was just wondering if anyone had any unique ways or idea's on wasing gravel of sand before using it in your tank?

Wash it until the water runs clear. For gravel I use a huge strainer. For sand I use a 5g bucket

 

[Lippy]

Wash it until the water runs clear. For gravel I use a huge strainer. For sand I use a 5g bucket

I know when its clean. I was just looking for some cool ideas on any unique ways people have come up with, like bubble washing or any king of equipment they my have come up with to do it?

 

[Lt.]

Instead of stirring sand by hand, using a drill and large drill bit my help.

 

[Lippy]

O.K. so I got a wild hair and let my mind go. I started with a 5 gal bucket and my drill. I drilled hundreds of 1/16 inch holes in the bottom. Filled the bucket up with the gravel I was going to wash. set the bucket on 2 racing stands and let the hose go. I wasn't liking the water flow so I filled up another 5gal bucket and dumped it in. That was the result I was looking for. It flooded the rock and washed it out in just 4 flooding.

So I had some black sand to wash. I thought quickly and grabbed a pillow case and put it in the bucket (knowing I needed something to keep the sand from draining out) I used the same flooding method and my sand was.clean in 6 floodings.

 

[Lippy]

Video sand bucket wash

 

[Lt.]

That's a video of your process? So the idea is that by quickly flooding it, you get all the light crappy stuff you don't want to overflow out?

 

[Lippy]

Well kinda. It filtered all down und out for the most part. But if I flooded it to overflow the bucket it would have. I was pretty happy with how clean the sand was to start with though.