Did You Large Tank Owners Rinse Your Sand?

[gofor100]

Hey Guys,

This might be a dumb question (since I think most people will say they do rinse their sand), but I was wondering if this is simply not realistic when setting up a larger tank (180+ gallons).

I'll be setting mine up (when it arrives in a couple of weeks), and can't imagine rinsing 230lbs of sand.

Secondarily, if most of you do rinse the sand, do you use just tap water, or do you actually use RO/DI water (couldn't imagine wasting this much RO/DI water, but I wanted to throw it out there).

Thanks in advance for your help,

Chad

[E-A-G-L-E-S]

When I had my 210g and I put in ~4" sand bed, I rinsed every grain. I didn't rinse it thoroughly enough though. Because of the lack of a thorough rinse everytime I cleaned the glass and often times from fish, random flow pattern, etc, I dealt with dust storms.
My advice is to do the job once, well, and be done with it.
Rinse it with tap wate and try to pour out all of the water before taking handfuls of sand from the bucket and putting it in the tank or dumping the bucket in.

[obiwanthegoby]

I rinsed mine using tap water and everything was fine.

[obiwanthegoby]

As a note though I let mine dry out thouroughly before placing in the tank....

[gofor100]

Thanks Guys!

Yeah, it seems like rinsing is a MUST, but I'll probably just use tap since I don't feel like making a ton of RO/DI water just to simply flush it down the drain.

Thanks again,

Chad

[drbius]

I set up a 90 gal recently and didn't want to go through the same thing I did with rinsing crushed coral. Dumped 90 LBS of un-rinsed sugar grade sand into the tank and THEN pumped the water in slowly. No problems. Predictably, the tank was a bit cloudy but cleared up within a few hours of turning on the filter pump. It gets cloudy when I move rocks around but is crystal clear the next morning. Had I had the time and patience I would have rinsed. So far I'm glad I didn't bother.




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[AJT]

No, I did not rinse any sand. All the stuff you are rinsing away is basically calcium.

30 forty pound bags, not rinsed. Put sand in first, then water. Clear in 1 day.

[launchnukes]

i rinsed with tap water out of a hose....all 300 lbs. not fun.

[gofor100]

i rinsed with tap water out of a hose....all 300 lbs. not fun.

Yeah... not looking forward to it... but I figure if I have the time, then might as well.

-Chad

[bullitr]

Chad
Rinse it with tap water then I use RO water on the final rinse.

[launchnukes]

Chad
Rinse it with tap water then I use RO water on the final rinse.

I forgot the ro rinse, I planned on it but forgot. Luckly no nitrates or phosphates. I guess the 500 gallons of water helps though. Lol

[dzfish17]

I didnt rinse the sand and used tap water for the fill up. I use RO/DI for top-off and water changes now. The tank was cloudy for a day and then it cleared up. I dont think it really matters when youre setting up a new tank.

[AJT]

All that powder is ground up aroginite. The same stuff we put in calcium reactor to disolve. Why rinse???

[gofor100]

All that powder is ground up aroginite. The same stuff we put in calcium reactor to disolve. Why rinse???

That was my initial thought, and then running all of the water through a sock that is changed/cleaned daily until it all cleared up.

I think I'll still probably rinse though... if time permits.

-Chad

[AJT]

This is 30 (40lb) bags unrinsed. Not that cloudy.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v237/ATE-A-V-8/748%20Gallon%20Rock%20Day/DSC00430.jpg

[Chalu]

Did not rinse on my 240G; put the sand (mix of caribsea special grade/fiji pink fine/live sand mix including some crushed coral from my last tank) in followed by salt water. put up a tunze 6205 at full blast ....used filter sock and a marineland 350 canister with micro filter.. water cleared up in 10 hours. stirred the sand occaisonally. no issues with water being cloudy after that.