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Cleaning sand quickly

4K views 16 replies 11 participants last post by  cwmorrow 
#1 ·


found this video on youtube. I didn't believe it when i saw it but would this be an affective, although time consuming way, to clean sand before putting sand in the aquarium?
 
#2 ·
That is certainly worth trying. I intend changing over my 70g this month, I'll give this a go. Can't be any more time consuming than rinsing 3 cups of sand at a time, and much less effort. Thanks for posting this.:)

Byron.
 
#3 ·
Imagine getting damp sand into the bottle. I'll stick to the 5g pail outside with a garden hose.
 
#4 ·
I think he put dry sand in it. Thats why i asked if this was a suitable way to rinse sand. The water allows the heavy sand to fall out but pushes ( in theory ) the toxins, if their are any, up along with the dust and fine particles. I would not do this with fish in as shown but I was curious if anyone else tried this and can confirm that it is safe for fish.
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#6 ·
Seems like it would take forever this way if you were putting sand in a large tank such a 6 ft tank. But might be worth a try for smaller tanks.
 
#8 ·
I need to add a little sand to one area of my 36g. I'm going to try this with a smaller bottle. Will let you know how it works.
 
#9 ·
Okay, just used this method to add sand to an established tank. The spot where I needed to put the sand was a little tight to get into, but overall I had to say the method worked pretty well. The water is definitely a little cloudy, but nothing like when I first added the washed sand. This sand was unwashed and it really seemed like much of the crap stayed behind in the bottle. I'd use this method again if I had to add more sand.
 
#10 ·
I don't see the benefit as well, unless you don't have access to an outdoor area with a hose. I just fill up a 5 gallon bucket about halfway and stick a running hose in it down to the bottom. Just let it overflow, and stir it around with the hose occasionaly. After, quickly tip it over to dump out any remaining suspended particles and good to go. Sitting in a lawn chair I was able to clean over 2 large bags in less than an hour, or enough to fill a 55 gallon.
 
#13 ·
I think the bottle size is critical to this working. At least, the mouth has to be quite narrow so the sand comes out very slowly, giving the dirt time to float and not come out with the sand.
 
#12 ·
The benifit is you dont cloud the water as much( which is good for the fish) and for those who dont have access to yard or hose to rinse sand outside. I'm not sure how long it would take to do a whole tank which is what I will find out soon with a 40gallon tank. I wonder if this method cleans sand better as well.
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#16 ·
The fallacy of this method is that it assumes that the sand has been adequately cleaned just because it didn't cloud the water.

 
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