How To Prepare Sand And Rock For A New Tank?

[aly_starh]

This is probably one of those question where you should use your common sense, but ill ask anyway.
How would one prepare the sand and live rock before it goes into the tank? The sand will need to be washed so what do i wash it in; ro water? Also can i pop the LR straight in the tank or will it need to be washed?
 
Thanks for reading! 

 

[Donya]

If it's high quality rock then straight in the tank for it. If it's got a lot of mucky dead slimy stuff then give it a scrub with a toothbrush in a bucket of tank water (good to do at the time of a WC). If the sand is live then wash in saltwater only, otherwise either fresh or salt works. I've never had much luck washing dry sand though. For the last couple tanks I set up, I just dumped it in and waited out the extra clear-up time that resulted. The dust from dry sand isn't harmful to life, although it's a good idea to keep any pumps off until it clears up so that they don't get extra wear from sucking up the particles. You can get enough dust even from washed sand that it's a good idea to keep the pumps off until it clears unless they're prefiltered. I've always just dropped some airline in until everything cleared up.