Rinsing Sand

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sparky5785

New member
I am going to pick up my sand today from reefwise its caribsea dry special grade reef sand. I have been told to rinse this sand really well. I've never rinsed sand before. Can I use tap water or do I need to use ro/di water? Do this in a bucket? Am I just rinsing the fine dust out or what? Do I need to let it dry? How would I do this?
 
Start with tap. Fill a bucket 1/2 to 3/4 full, turn on the hose, use a broom handle to stir, poor off excess. I would, for the last rinse, poor in RODI water and then poor off just like before. Using a hose makes it a TON easier.
 
I have always rinsed with salt water. I use a couple of 5 gallon buckets and swirl the sand around with my hands and then drain and refill with saltwater and repeat until water is clear.
 
Unfortunately I can't make that much saltwater until I find a brute to buy. That's a good idea to do final rinse with ro/di. Do I need to let it dry? Or can it immediately go in the tank?

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with all of the work we do to try to use the purest water, I can't imagine rinsing sand with tap water. I guess I may be overly cautious, but I rinse everything with RODI if it has even been splashed with tap water. It seems to me sand would just absorb and hold all of that heavy metal and nastyness in the tap and I would always wonder if it was having a negative impact later. We have so many variables to control, I would just remove that one if I could. Drying it wouldn't remove anything but the pure water anyway. Any contaminants would be left behind.
 
just use your tap water. Anything else is just over cautious parinoia. I used well water out of a hose (measures 1400 tds). I then filled the bucket half way up with sand. I put the hose in the 5 gal bucket and ran it till the water came out clear. Used my hands (with gloves on) to stir up the sand and get as much stuff free floating in the water as possible. There is no need to dry the sand before putting it in your tank.
 
Captmrbles said:
just use your tap water. Anything else is just over cautious parinoia. I used well water out of a hose (measures 1400 tds). I then filled the bucket half way up with sand. I put the hose in the 5 gal bucket and ran it till the water came out clear. Used my hands (with gloves on) to stir up the sand and get as much stuff free floating in the water as possible. There is no need to dry the sand before putting it in your tank.
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+100
 
Sit out front (( or back )) with a 5 gallon bucket, an PVC pipe (( sucks to rinse sand with your hands )) and a hose. Rinse the heck out of it, and then rinse again.

I personally have never let it dry, just drained as much of the water as possible (( a piece of acrylic is handy at keeping the sand in the bucket while draining the water out )), and dump it in the tank.
 
Herbie said:
well then. I have been too cautious. I will proceed accordingly.
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Yes and no, I rinse with tap water forever, then rinse in RO water to be sure to remove any silicates or nasty stuff before adding to the tank.


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also when filling up the tank its fills more clearly if you put something like a dinner plate on the sand and pour the water on that so it doesn't agitate the sand.
 
I just do a water change and rinse the sand with the old tank saltwater.
I use the old saltwater to rinse a bunch of things like new filter socks, new liverock, ect.

I have my own rodi so making new saltwater doesnt take very long.
 
I pack mine in a gallon ziplock, then squeeze out all of the air. I put the bag of sand on the bottom, opened it, and very slowly pour it out. I had very little cloudiness in the tank. It was way better than any other method I've ever tied.


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Captmrbles said:
just use your tap water. Anything else is just over cautious parinoia. I used well water out of a hose (measures 1400 tds). I then filled the bucket half way up with sand. I put the hose in the 5 gal bucket and ran it till the water came out clear. Used my hands (with gloves on) to stir up the sand and get as much stuff free floating in the water as possible. There is no need to dry the sand before putting it in your tank.
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I also agree with this. If you still don't feel good about it, you can always use some Seachem Prime.
 
Greg said:
I just do a water change and rinse the sand with the old tank saltwater.
I use the old saltwater to rinse a bunch of things like new filter socks, new liverock, ect.

I have my own rodi so making new saltwater doesnt take very long.
Click to expand...

+1. Just do a water change and use that water.
 
I use that same sand and I like it a lot....when I got it I rinsed it and I'm glad I did because a lot of stuff came out. I just filled a 5 gallon bucket 3/4 full and shoved a hose in the bottom of the bucket and let it run. I would stir it occasionally but I just left it running for a while. Once it was running clear I knew it was done. Drained as much as I could and put it in the tank. I guess if I had enough RO water, or water change water, that would be best but I had the hose going for a good 10 minutes just letting it run so that would be a lot of water.
 
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