# Sand Washing/Rinsing Tutorial



## MoneyMitch

*How to clean sand for your aquarium*

*Items needed*:

1. Bucket Preferably 5 gallon (i used a drink cooler with gallon marks)
2. Inert sand (I used play sand for this tut)
3. Garden hose ( you dont need the handle thing just a plain old hose will work)
4. Good amount of spare time




Here is the sand that i used, the bag said that it was pre washed and strained. Now it might have been but just because it says its pre-washed and everything doesn't mean its ready for your aquarium.











*Step 1.

*Pour in about 1 and a half to 2 gallons worth of sand. and then fill the bucket pretty much to the top with water. While you are filling it with water you don't necessarily need to worry about moving the sand around in the bucket just yet.





















*Step 2.

*Now this is where the magic happens.  Now that your bucket has sand and is filled with water using your hand start making a circular motion relatively close to the sand making sure that there aren't any piles of it on the bottom. The goal here is to have all of the sand suspended in the water, After you have stirred up all of the sand give it about 30 seconds or so to where the "good sand" can sink as it sinks really fast and then the smaller floating sand bits that cloud your water will be suspended in the water. Now the first Rinse water will look like water out of a mud puddle very brown and merky. (Arent you glad this isnt in your aquarium?!?!8)













*Step 3.

*Now about 30 seconds to a miniute after stirring your water you want to SLOWLY pour out the water. now your not going to get all of the water out obviously but the goal here is to get the three gallons or so of water out which has the floating sand bits in it. this step you want to repeat ATLEAST 15 times or untill you are happy with how fast the sand settles. Remember when its in ur aquarium the clouding effect will seem much worse if not rinsed properly.













*Step 4.*

Once you have reached the settle time that you have desired (Under 1 miniute is pretty clean sand)
bring your sand inside to your aquarium that *should be empty *and start to pile in the sand. once you have the depth of sand you desire then start to smooth it out with your hand or even a ruler. once all the sand has been smoothed out and placed inside the aquarium get a nice big flat "something" so the water that your are putting in your aquarium wont disturb the sand you just smoothed out.












*Step 5.

*Now that you have your clean sand all smoothed out and your aquarium filled with water (hopefully not to the top if you plan on adding rocks and things" you can add your rocks plants and decor. now personally i have a bed of about 2inches as i plan on planting this tank. if you dont plan to have alot of live plants you dont need anything over a inch of sand in the bottom. here is my finished product (rocks arent set up yet just threw them in there to get the volume/water line where it needs to be.













Now i got the idea to do a tut with pictures from *Tyyrlym* and his post which can be found here http://www.fishforum.com/freshwater-aquariums/sand-substrates-20668/ I hope this helps anyone who is wondering about sand and how to clean it for your aquarium.I bought this sand from a lowes and got three 50lb bags for under 10.00 total. i ended up using only a bag and a half to achieve the 2inch depth of sand. Hope you guys enjoy,Money














​


----------



## Malcolm Little

Thank you. A very useful post.

Might somewhat tack this permanently to the top?


----------



## aunt kymmie

You forgot the part about doing your sand washing out of the eyesight of certain neighbors. 
Here in drought stricken California certain neighbors would report certain people for wasting water. :lol:

Nice tutorial and your end result looks great. Looking forward to seeing your tank full of fish.


----------



## MoneyMitch

aunt kymmie said:


> You forgot the part about doing your sand washing out of the eyesight of certain neighbors.
> Here in drought stricken California certain neighbors would report certain people for wasting water. :lol:
> 
> Nice tutorial and your end result looks great. Looking forward to seeing your tank full of fish.



hahaha good thing im not in cali :O should have fish here in about a week or so need to get my water params in check and get some heaters.Money


----------



## MoneyMitch

Tut for how to Vac/maintain sand coming soon >>>>>


----------



## animalover

thank you! (i hope i dont have to live in cal.)


----------



## Herky

What size of tank was that?
How much sand did you buy?
How much did you use?


----------



## MoneyMitch

size/ 55 gal
bought 150lbs
used only half that after the wash to get about 2 inches on the bottom


----------



## Worldshaker

Tried this yesterday. used a 4g bucket with about 1g of sand. After about 40+ washes it was still cloudy for me. Gonna try some more washing today.


----------



## MoneyMitch

i mean sand is ALWAYS going to float around after you stri it up. your aiming for it all to settle after like 2 mins. gunna take you forever to get NOTHING to float but the more washing the better your results. Keep on it man took me all freking day to do like 75-80 lbs of this stuff and i do mean all day!!


----------



## Worldshaker

Ya I dont expect it to settle so fast...but it was still cloudy after sitting in the bucket over night after all those washes on just ~1g of sand


----------



## MoneyMitch

not sure what to tell ya man i mean i didi it about 10-20 times and even took a pic of the result as you can see clear water. are you letting it sit too long after you stir it? you slowly pour out the water as soon as you feel sand start to gather at the bottom.


----------



## Worldshaker

At first I was slowly pouring it out after 30 sec or so, then started pouring it out after 10-15 sec to try to get rid of anything that might stay suspended in the water. Maybe I just got a crapy bag of sand. I see your sand looks mostly tan, mine is tan with lots of black looking sand too. Its a 50lbs bag from lowes (play sand).


----------



## MoneyMitch

that sucks man :/ i mean at worst your tank will be cloudy for prob like a day or so if your movin it around and stuff. i mean with a filter on there thatll help with the floaties too. just remember when you service your filter unplug it first before you remove the cartridge so nothing gets disturbed and pumped back in ur tank.


----------



## MonsiuerPercy1

I did this yesterday with some crushed coral, thanks to the help of MXS. It took like 25 minutes to clean 30 lbs of Aragonite. I got it for 10 bucks second hand which is a pretty good price. I did the same thing that was described in this post. It worked pretty well but took FOREVER!


----------



## MoneyMitch

thats the only thing that kinda sucks about this, it does take FOREVER!!! but if you want results stay on it


----------



## Ramenuzumaki

thats awesome
you didnt use a lot at all!
hmm i might try this


----------



## MoneyMitch

it works wonders look at my tank the sand i cleaned here is what is currently in the tank now.


----------



## Ramenuzumaki

how come it looks like sand not all muddy and brown?


----------



## MoneyMitch

because it was properly washed.


----------



## Ramenuzumaki

good reason 
hard work pays off!


----------

