cleaning play sand?

[vince0]

Im setting up a 120g this week and was planning on getting play sand from hom depot. Anything perticular i should watch for? Any recommended methods? I've previously only used gravel so this sand thing is kinda new.

any help is appreciated

thanks

vince

[angel al]

The play sand I bought at Home Depot didn't require cleaning. I believe it's been washed prior to bagging.

[vince0]

The play sand I bought at Home Depot didn't require cleaning. I believe it's been washed prior to bagging.

Bonus! That's awesome! Im gonna go get some monday then You've just made my day!

[BettaFishMommy]

you definitely want to wash the play sand from home depot! i picked up a bag of it myself a while back and had to rinse it quite a few times before i felt it was clean enough to add to the tank. the bag says it's been washed but there is a large amount of clay silt in play sand, so you do want to rinse it well.

i used a 5 gallon bucket in the bathtub and filled it 1/3 full of sand and added water so the bucket was about 3/4 full. churned it up with my hand repeatedly and poured off the dirty water. repeat many times! lol. once the poured off water is looking not quite so yucky i did a final rinse with Prime added to the water in the bucket and churned once more and poured the water out (because i'm super paranoid about chloramines touching my fish, lol). scooped the cleaned sand into another bucket and repeated the process until i had enough clean sand to put in the tank.

when adding it to your tank i would suggest using a large measuring cup and slowly lower the cup into the tank to the bottom and then slowly pour the sand out of it. i changed to sand with my tank half full of water and with the fish still in the tank (55 gallon). keep adding sand until you have the amount you want, evening it out over the tank bottom slowly as you go. make sure your filters are turned off for this whole procedure or else you may get a lot of sand and silt in your impellers. after all the sand has been added, remove as much water from the tank as possible, keeping the fish covered, then refill by pouring new water over some decor or use a supper plate on the bottom of the tank to keep the sand from being blown around by water pouring in.

Edited November 12, 2010 by BettaFishMommy

[Jayba]

Yep. Play sand is dusty stuff. Plan on rinsing alot. Target is the stuff I use. Home depot has it.

[vince0]

Is target different stuff?

[MarkN]

Target is the brand name and they sell it at home depot. I have used the bucket idea and depending on time of year I just run a hose in it for a while and keep rinsing it into the garden.

[rED O]

The play sand I bought at Home Depot didn't require cleaning. I believe it's been washed prior to bagging.

I am going to disagree with this one.. I always see print on gravel and sand saying pre rinsed, and it still makes my water a tinge cloudy after I rinse it.

[Morphine]

The play sand I bought at Home Depot didn't require cleaning. I believe it's been washed prior to bagging.

I am going to disagree with this one.. I always see print on gravel and sand saying pre rinsed, and it still makes my water a tinge cloudy after I rinse it.

I've used Target Playsand from Home Depot for 4(6 bags) Tanks - I rinsed one, the other 3 I didn't rinse -- There was no difference in any of the tanks, just make sure you don't stir it up when adding and you will be fine. (Don't you dare say that I got lucky with one bag either)

[MarkoD]

trust me, it is not pre cleaned.

i found the best way to clean it is to put it in the tank.... fill up the tank....... drain the tank..... repeat few times

[Neesmo]

ive used the target brand play sand in the 140 and 170 gallon tanks and i would definitely say it was a good idea to do a good number of rinses on it. lots of natual particles and debri i dont want in my tank. not to mention all the clay silt. was very noticibly dirty water for the first few rinses

(and dont you dare say i just got unlucky with all my bags)

[jvision]

If you don't want to rinse it, dump it into an empty tank, then fill it with water VERY SLOWLY - you'll get little to no clouding.

[dunl]

If you can do it outside, take a hose and put it into a half-filled bucket of sand. Turn the hose on slowly.

As the water churns up the sand, the particles will get stirred up. Let the bucket overflow and it will carry them away. After a bit, you'll be left with clean sand.

Too little water, and it takes forever and not everything gets stirred up....too much and you will wash away your sand.

[bananashirt]

If you dump the sand into a tank full of water its gonna cloud up. if you leave the filter running it should clear up in a day or two. if you pour the sand into the tank first and pour water into it slowly there should be no problem. That's with almost any gravel...especially the geosystem stuff.

[vince0]

I ended up just dumping the sand into the tank and filling it slowly. I placed a rock on the bottom and made sure that my hose was aimed at said rock. The tank didn't really cloud up, and I left the filter off for a couple days to give particles a chance to settle. Before starting the filter I did a 50% w/c to make sure any silt would get picked up. The tank is all set up now, thank you very much for you imput.