DHS
Aquarium Advice Apprentice
While at Home Depot this weekend (looking fruitlessly for SouthDown in TX) I found that they had some sterilized playsand. This sand is suppose to be sterilized enough for babies to play in but my question/idea is this...if I get the sand and setup a way to pull as many of the unknown chemicals from it would it be usable in my new tank??
Full details for my idea are as follows:
Bake 5-10# of sand in the oven @ 500 degrees for 1 hour
Place a bubble wand on the bottom of a bucket
Put the sand in a bucket
Fill the bucket with water
Place a heater in the water (running temp 90+ degrees)
Attach 2 power filters on either side of the bucket (to create a circular motion of water)
Use Active Carbon in one filter and SeaGel in the other filter
Let this run for about 5-7 days (turning up the sand about twice per day)
Finally filter out as much of the water as possible & rebake the sand @ 450 degrees in the oven again for 1 hour
Now if anyone has other animals like herps or snakes you'll know that baking items from out side at 450+ degrees for 1 hour is the standard practice to remove bacteria & parasites. Thus the reason for the baking, but my thinking is that with the whole process it should hopefully clean the sand and make it safe for my tank. But any ideas to perfect this process would be great. Also please don't get on to me about the use of play sand and chemicals..bla, bla, bla...I know all this. But with no Southdown down here I am really trying to avoid paying $20+ for 20# of sand.
Peace,
DHS
Full details for my idea are as follows:
Bake 5-10# of sand in the oven @ 500 degrees for 1 hour
Place a bubble wand on the bottom of a bucket
Put the sand in a bucket
Fill the bucket with water
Place a heater in the water (running temp 90+ degrees)
Attach 2 power filters on either side of the bucket (to create a circular motion of water)
Use Active Carbon in one filter and SeaGel in the other filter
Let this run for about 5-7 days (turning up the sand about twice per day)
Finally filter out as much of the water as possible & rebake the sand @ 450 degrees in the oven again for 1 hour
Now if anyone has other animals like herps or snakes you'll know that baking items from out side at 450+ degrees for 1 hour is the standard practice to remove bacteria & parasites. Thus the reason for the baking, but my thinking is that with the whole process it should hopefully clean the sand and make it safe for my tank. But any ideas to perfect this process would be great. Also please don't get on to me about the use of play sand and chemicals..bla, bla, bla...I know all this. But with no Southdown down here I am really trying to avoid paying $20+ for 20# of sand.
Peace,
DHS