Washing/rinsing new sand

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Hi,
Just about to tranfer my lovely axies to a new oasis and wanting anyones ideas on the best way to wash/rinse new sand purchased for their tanks, opted for this over the river stones in their current tank (waay too much maintenence!) Thanks
 
I just part fill a container with sand, then fill the rest up with water. Swirl the sand around with your hand, the sand being heavy will go back to the bottom, dirt and debris that is lighter will float for longer, so you can empty the dirty water out. Do this repeatedly until the water stays clean once the sand has settled.
 
depending on how much you have I do the same as Rob for smaller tanks but for my 4ft I used a bucket outside and a hose and the hose does most of the work whilst you do the occassional stir, just leave hose in and let the water continously overflow until its clear and no more debris/duct is coming out :happy:
 
zoezakella said:
depending on how much you have I do the same as Rob for smaller tanks but for my 4ft I used a bucket outside and a hose and the hose does most of the work whilst you do the occassional stir, just leave hose in and let the water continously overflow until its clear and no more debris/duct is coming out :happy:
Click to expand...

That's a great idea! I should have done that - I made such a mess of the kitchen sink :p
 
I used a fish net in a bucket - use it as a sifter to allow all the light sand to go through the fish net.

Took me a while to get all the sand, but the sand did settle within 1 day
 
Thanks for all the tips guys. Much appreciated, looking forward to getting them in their new home :happy:
 
I got the new tank today and have filled it and the majority of the sand settled pretty quickly, I think I rinsed it within a inch of its life (ha ha) my tank is still only slightly a little cloudy and seems to be settling, how long should it take to fully settle?
 
Not too long I'd say, my sand settled right away, but I washed it literally for hours, there was soooo much dust in it (dont want to do that again haha). Although its definatly worth it, much less maintenance than the big river stones I had before switching to sand, thanks to advice from this forum =).
A couple of hours to a day maybe, I dont think it should take more than that? Good luck :happy:!
 
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