How To Clean Sand?

[LadyRiv.]

hi, might sound like a stupid question...

i bought a bag of playsand and want to use it in my tank. reading through some posts, people advise to clean the sand before using it. how do i do that? and what is the best way to swap the gravel i have in my tank for sand? do i swap half of the tank and then 2nd half with next water change or everything in 1 go?

thanks

 

[waterdrop]

One of the best ways is to get a big container (such as a big clean bucket) and place it somewhere on the back patio or yard where most of the overflow may benefit your garden or lawn. Stick the hose down in the sand and start it flowing slowly. The tricky part is adjusting the flow so that it churns the sand around a bit, keeping the fine dust stirring in to the water in the bucket but not having it so strong that too much sand flows out of the bucket. You should be able to observe that the water seems a bit cloudy initially but that eventually when you come back for one of your 15min or half hour checks it will be clear and will not get dusty when you churn the sand more with your hand.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[Rynofasho]

Agreed. It takes longer, but you'll get the sand more clean if you clean small amounts at a time. IE take a 5 gallon bucket and clean about 2 gallons of sand at a time and you can get it cleaner quicker, just takes more bucketfuls

Swap all the gravel in one go. I used a plastic container like you can pick up at walmart or something like this and drain most of your tank water into it. If you have a HOB filter and heater if need be (if you think it will take awhile), slap them on there too and then rehome all your fish in there while you do the swap. Take out gravel, wash bottom really well, put in sand, refill (helps to pour water over a big dinner plate to keep from blasting the sand around) and set it back up and rehome your fish to your new tank with sand!

 

[LadyRiv.]

thanks for the help, finished swapping the gravel to sand today and fish seem happy with it

 

[Rynofasho]

Congrats! I just bought a 75, so now I have the fun task of washing 100lb of sand today. Yay!

 

[This Old Spouse]

If you like a light colored sand and don't want to spend forever washing it, I highly recommend sand-blasting sand from the home store (Home Depot, etc.). It's a consistent size, and TBH after the first tank, we didn't wash it at all for the subsequent tanks, and it was wonderful.