Rinsing Find Sand

[Flame Angel]

I just picked up about 160# of Marco fine sand for my 180g build.

I am looking for recommendations in regards to rinsing the sand before putting the sand into the tank.

Thoughs on using tap water. Big mistake, right? Due to TDS residue, contaminants and copper

Use RO/DI water that I have stored in a 55g drum as rinse water.

I have a few of my own ideas, but was wondering is someone had a tried and true process of rinsing fine sand.

 

[Turbosnail]

+1 I am using the same sand for my 125 and would also like to know.

 

[DC4242]

I reused sand from my 125 -which was rinsed throughly thru a screen with tap water and added with some new sand into my new 150 Marineland cube - its been up and running since labor day and believe there have been no issues yet -fingers still crossed

 

[frank180reef]

well it is essentually the same as adding a little tap water to your tank, I would think this would be ok, maybe not 100% ideal but ok

might also depend on how good or bad your tap water is.......

 

[afboundguy]

I've rinsed with Tap water before... I usually just add a de-chlorinating product just for peace of mind... But my personal favorite is to just dump it in and let it de-cloud on its own

 

[Ruge13]

I've always used Tap in the past when I decided to rinse, usually because I did not have RODI water around. If I had that I would have used it. Used tap for Southdown and Black Carib sand 2x. Put a bag or less in a 5 Gal bucket and ran a hose through it until it was clear, Wash, rinse, repeat

I am also a fan of the cloud method above Most of all when you are using live rock, or some portion of live sand to cycle. The hitchhikers start leaving little tracks all through the silt that settles. That's a cool part of the process IMHO, and lets you know things are alive and moving around. The tank cleans itself if your flow is decent and you use a filter sick on an overflow.

 

[MisFit]

Good luck trying to rinse that sand, its really fine. Look out for the clumps of clay that sometimes show up and remove them. You can try rinsing it in a bucket a little at a time and decant off the cloudy stuff I guess, i gave up rinsing when I put a 6" bed in a 400 gallon tank and just threw it all in and filled slowly. It was cloudy for about a week but then settled down.

 

[fishfry]

If you have a tank still up and running I would just do a water change and use the old water to rinse the sand. Just my thought.

 

[Oceangirl2009]

+1 on letting it settle on it's own. I tried rinsing, but that got old very fast! I put it all in and 5 days later it was crystal clear. I would also imagine that you lose a lot of your sand when you rinse to perfection with something that fine.

 

[banshee1]

I rinsed about 100# for my 65 and it was still cloudy for 3 days.I've got a 75 gallon purer day ro system so I just stuck the hose to the bottom of the bag in a 5 gallon bucket, had a couple beers and dumped it in. no rinse for me next time tho.I'll wait the extra 3 days and let it clear by itself.I will also never use that fine of sand again.to much blow around

 

[Bobbofin]

How much tap water could you possibly put in your tank, maybe a quart? I wash out my skimmer cup and and blast my mesh filter socks with tap water several times weekly with no ill effects.