Help! Gravel cleaning advice needed

[Orthoducks]

This concerns epoxy-coated gravel that is not in an active aquarium. The aquarium has long been dry, and I moved the gravel to a bucket. It's soiled with whatever the fish deposited on it plus about 15 years of house dust and anything else that fell in the tank.

I thought I could clean the gravel but pouring a few inches of it into another bucket, covering it with water, adding a squirt of dish detergent, and letting it sit. After a while, I'd stir up the gravel with my hand and pour off the dirty water. Then rinse and repeat until the water comes out clean.

Well, I've rinsed the first load of gravel about four times now, and the water pours out just as dirty as it did when I started. It's going to take a very long time at this reate. And when I'm done, I will have cleaned about 10% of the gravel I started with.

Is there a better way to do this?

I found one post that applies to a similar problem, Help! Need gravel cleaning advice, but it's mainly concerned with removing the odor of cat pee, so I don't think the products it recommends are likely to help me.

 

[Andy Sager]

If you used detergent on all of it, you might as well toss the gravel because detergents can leave a coating on surfaces that will kill fish. You should never use any kind of soap or detergent on anything fish tank related. Bleach ( with no additives), Ammonia ( with no additives) can be used safely but not soaps or detergents ( even plant based ones. )
If you did not use detergent on all the gravel, for the rest it's either going to take a long time because it's obviously very dirty or you can use a screen method where you use or make a box with small hole screening that the gravel won't go through and doing this outdoors, use a garden hose with a spray nozzle and blast he gravel so that the dirt washes through and cleans the gravel. The plus side for using this method is that the dirt is gone from the container vs it getting mixed down deeper into the bucket. ( Like cleaning sand can do. :^s ) You do a little at a time so that you don't miss any spots. It's not a quick fix but it's definitely faster than using a bucket.

 

[Orthoducks]

Thank you... I had no idea that soap (not detergent) could be so harmful to fish. I have treated every batch of gravel with soap first, as a matter of course.

You're probably wondering, "If this person keeps fish, how could they not know something as basic as not using soap?" The answer is that I'm not a fish person at all -- my wife was. She has passed away, and I'm getting her things ready to be passed on to others who can make good use of them. (In crass commercial language, an estate sale.)

I now must decide what to do with all the gravel . I have many pounds of it already cleaned, dried, and packaged. They represent a lot of work. I must either find a way to remove every trace of soap -- even more work -- or throw the whole lot in the trash.

I'm leaning toward trash. It's very hard for me to throw out anything that can be made usable, but I know that I carry this too far and waste a lot of time fixing things that aren't worth fixing. My life will be better if I can stop doing that.

 

[Big Dog is cool]

I would also recommend getting rid of the stuff all so.

 

[Andy Sager]

Thank you... I had no idea that soap (not detergent) could be so harmful to fish. I have treated every batch of gravel with soap first, as a matter of course.

You're probably wondering, "If this person keeps fish, how could they not know something as basic as not using soap?" The answer is that I'm not a fish person at all -- my wife was. She has passed away, and I'm getting her things ready to be passed on to others who can make good use of them. (In crass commercial language, an estate sale.)

I now must decide what to do with all the gravel . I have many pounds of it already cleaned, dried, and packaged. They represent a lot of work. I must either find a way to remove every trace of soap -- even more work -- or throw the whole lot in the trash.

I'm leaning toward trash. It's very hard for me to throw out anything that can be made usable, but I know that I carry this too far and waste a lot of time fixing things that aren't worth fixing. My life will be better if I can stop doing that.

Sorry to hear about the Mrs.
I will make this suggestion for the soaped gravel, use it in a flower bed or planter box or fill some pot holes with it. The soap residue will not harm the ground. It could however hurt whomever uses it in a fish tank or the poor trash man's back from lifting it.

 

[Orthoducks]

Thanks for the advice. I will add the gravel to my collection of things to throw out when there's room for them in the trash.

Using the gravel in a flower bed would look weird, because a lot of it is coated with epoxy, in multiple colors.

There's no need to worry about the waste collector's back... the trucks do the lifting now. They have a thing like a fork lift that pick up each can, lifts it over the truck, turns it upside down, and sets it down empty. The only back involved will be mine, rolling the can (downhill) to the curb.