Play sand - how clean is "clean enough"?

iamgray

It is making me crazy! I've rinsed the sand at least 10 times... the water is still cloudy, but not brown... is it clean enough? My hands are getting sore!!!!

marshallsea

sorry, i would think its not ready until its clear. it takes forever and an a day.

GwenInNM

Totally agree. You have to rinse till clear, or you will regret it. You'll have cloudy water, which won't clear without many water changes etc.

It's a lot of work, but worth it. Keep rinsing!

Gwen

Byron

I'll pass along my trick to shortcut this a tad. In a 2-3 gallon pail, only clean maybe 3 or 4 cups of sand max at a time. Rinse maybe 6 or 7 times, swishing the sand and pouring off the cloudy/dirty water. After 6 times, I run the water in without swirling and if I can see the sand through the water I consider it OK. After dumping all the sand in the tank and leveling it, fill the tank about 1/3. Arrange the wood, rock, etc. (this stirs up the sand again); if the wood/rock came from an existing tank, use a dechlorinator when you add the water to preserve bacteria, otherwise not necessary. Plant. When wood/rock is finalized, siphon out the water as much as you can, down to the sand (make a small depression somewhere to get as much water as possible). Then fill the tank, adding the dechlorinator, and using a clean soup bowl or similar to avoid disturbing the sand. It will not be crystal clear, but it won't be bad. This usually clears in a couple days.

Byron.

iamgray

I ended up doing basically what Byron said, without having read it, so I think I'm ok now! My first bucket that I was rinsing was just waaaaaay too full.

Now I'll give this one some time before adding more fish, and I have a rock structure at home that I'm going to put in and I'll attach some Java Fern to it, add some more floating plants and bring a couple of the babies off my Amazon Sword from home to fill out the back a bit more, and put a black background on it.

This is it for now though:

Attached Images

20 g fish tank.jpg (56.1 KB, 26 views)

Byron

That's about how my tanks look. It will clear. But expect a bacterial bloom that will keep it cloudy (just don't blame it on the sand) due to a new substrate. Water changes will only make that worse, so let it establish.

iamgray

And just for kicks... this tank is replacing my old 10 gallon which looked like this... (I like the new setup better).

Attached Images

office fish 002.jpg (66.8 KB, 26 views)

GwenInNM

Looks good. Now you tell us the secret Byron! LOL

Gwen