washing sand... necessary?

[Gruntking]

you could get like a 55gal trash can or smaller and fill it with the sand and run a hose in it. itd rinse it quicker since you be able to do more at a time?

Well you actually have to stir up the sand because if you just put water in there it wont really be doing anything and the water will almost come out crystal clear from the beginning.

I guess it all depends on the type of sand. The PFS i bought at home depot was $5 for 50 pounds, although cheap it did require some rinsing out. I usually spent about 3 minutes rinsing out about 30 pounds of sand.

 

[Gruntking]

wow is that even sand? looks like its inbetween gravel and sand, i went the cheap route when my lfs had it 1 dollar per pound and i need prob 500-600 lbs. gtg start washing i guess. not too worried about sand messing up my pump, its a reeflo hammerhead and i hope it can handle some small sand particles, but i dont want cloudy water so i will be washing for a while i guess

1 dollar per pound must be some real quality stuff!

 

[fishmamma]

I guess it all depends on the type of sand. The PFS i bought at home depot was $5 for 50 pounds, although cheap it did require some rinsing out. I usually spent about 3 minutes rinsing out about 30 pounds of sand.

I agree, it does depend on the type of sand.. because when I rinsed the black sand I have in my 40.. it took me an hour and a half to rinse 40lbs of it.. and it still wasn't crystal clear.. it still ran with a little tint in it..

 

[Gruntking]

Damn! Thats a long time

 

[fishmamma]

Damn! Thats a long time

I'm very thorough ... especially when it comes to my fish..

 

[brich999]

well i did 100lbs in 45 min, what a pain since its cold out, but i didnt get it perfect. close enough i guess, ill keep working on it a bit every night and then try to see if i can find some small micron filter socks when im cycling my tank and hopefully it will clear enough. does that water clarifier work at all for sand dust? i know its supposed to clump dirt together

 

[Def Leppard Hysteria]

wow is that even sand? looks like its inbetween gravel and sand

That's the reason we went with the Ivory Coast Sand. It's 1-2 mm grain size. We didn't want too fine....or too coarse. We ordered it from a local fish store, sight unseen, too. Luckily, it turned out to be all that we had hoped for.

 

[erk419]

wow is that even sand? looks like its inbetween gravel and sand, i went the cheap route when my lfs had it 1 dollar per pound and i need prob 500-600 lbs. gtg start washing i guess. not too worried about sand messing up my pump, its a reeflo hammerhead and i hope it can handle some small sand particles, but i dont want cloudy water so i will be washing for a while i guess

A dollar per pound geez I bet when you clean your tank you treat that like its gold. Right now I'm using cheap play sand and I have spots in my drive way were my hose lays hanging out the window and some got sucked out. If I had what you have any thing that got sucked out would be going right back in.

Posted on mobile.monsterfishkeepers.com

 

[skiptomyzoo]

well i did 100lbs in 45 min, what a pain since its cold out, but i didnt get it perfect. close enough i guess, ill keep working on it a bit every night and then try to see if i can find some small micron filter socks when im cycling my tank and hopefully it will clear enough. does that water clarifier work at all for sand dust? i know its supposed to clump dirt together

If you mean what sits on top of the water, what didn't sink was clumped enough for me to get with a net. However, if you mean the dust that sits ontop the sandbed after settling best way to do that is with a siphon a bit off the sandbed. However since you did rinse, you probably won't have the second problem.

 

[brich999]

idk just where the water is a lil cloudy. i thought that water clarifier may help... ill try to figure it out, i just realized i need to replace bulkheads, so sand is on the backburner for now