Sand Cleaning

[Jadenblack]

Ok so I read that you can use all purpose sand, but it needs to be cleaned very well.

I have been running water through it for about an hour now and it still look murky.

Anyone have any experience with this??

 

[OCCFan023]

yea, when I changed from gravel to sand When i rinsied my 50 pounds of sand I let it clean for about a full day and a half and it was still murky when I put it in the tank. Basically you gotta rinse rinse and rinse and then when you put it in wait for it to settle.

 

[Jadenblack]

So it is running clear with the hose in the bucket, but when I stir it, it gets all nasty but settles with about 30sec. Would you think that it is cleaned enough?

 

[OCCFan023]

yea thats how mine was, but when you put it in the tank its gonna be very cloudy, so let it settle then do a couple of water changes and you should be set man

 

[MrParker]

what i did was jetstream the sand in the bucket and mix it up, make it as murkey as you possibly can, then dump the water out, that way the finer sand that is making the water murkey, will get dumped out but its not like your wasting sand, even though it sounds like that, but you get the idea. thats how i rinsed mine, rinse dump rinse dump etc. and yes your tank will be murkey when you first put the sand in. Its easier however to add the sand then ad the water very gently, and then teh sand doesnt get too stirred up, and not AS cloudy. But then for about a month, everyonce n a while a random bubble will come up out of ur sand. hah cuz it has air pockets.
Anyways i like sand much more than gravel, easier to plant in. Have fun

 

[Jadenblack]

Thank you so much I have been doing it the way you said and it seems to be the only way that I felt it was getting clean.

 

[NoDeltaH2O]

I went out today and gathered some sand/gravel for a new tank I'll be setting up real soon and something that I found in rinsing it is that i get better (faster) results if I rinse small amounts at a time as opposed to a large amount. With a large amount, there are a lot of fine particles that get trapped underneath and it takes a long time to get the fines out. With smaller quantities, you can move it around easier under the water flow and get the fines out faster. My sand/gravel is mostly black. Jackpot!

 

[Jadenblack]

Small is the key I learned that with the seccond batch.


Thank you I will post pics soon!

 

[f8fan]

also, if you notice that the water is still murky when the tank is all set up, take some filter floss (or polyfill/pillow filling stuff) from the craft section of Wal Mart) and cut a piece, take a rubberband and attach this to the filter intake, you would be amazed at how much gunk this absorbs. My tank is 3 mos. into the setup and its STILL cloudy. I have been doing the above trick for a week or so and it's really clearing up.

If the sand gets around your filter impeller it's bad news. The filter I have now is making a constant hummmmm becasue the sand I think has damaged it. I am just waiting for the sand to get settled/filtered before I go and get a new filter. (Big Als' Online...here I come! I love Big Als)

 

[Jadenblack]

I seem to have been lucky the tank cleared withing 24 hours. I will have to keep in mind covering the intakes when I start adding rocks and plants just to cut down on the sand.

Thank you! *thumbsups