Rinsing New Sand

[reefeel]

Okay, so I am ready to put sand in my 300 gallon reef but I have a problem. Our tap water, which comes from a spring, is loaded with nitrates, phosphates, basically everything bad. I don't want to spend almost $30 for 20lbs of prerinsed stuff. Anyone have any ideas of how to clean this water without having to use R/O water?

 

[gatorcsm]

In my personal opinion, with a 300g tank, the amount of water remaining (if you drain the sand well) should be minimal. As long as you aren't planning normal additions of this, i think you'll be ok.
If a test after the tank is up and running shows high levels, then you could do a water change to get it down.

 

[fedukeford]

im confused, so your water is bad, and because of that you dont want to have to spend extra money on pre rinsed sand??? the water being bad has nothing to do with what type of sand you get

 

[reefeel]

What I mean is that I could get the Caribsea aragalive that is prerinsed or rinse it myself. Another problem is that we have some copper pipes and I can test copper from my tap all the time.

 

[gatorcsm]

Unless i was mistaken, you're saying that your water is high in tds, has some nitrates and phosphate, correct?
I would imagine that if you can drain the sand fairly well prior to use, you would be left with less than a ppm of nitrate and anything else that you might be adding (unless this water is really really bad). Even if slightly higher than this, a water change could lower it further and once the tank is in operation, what is left will be neglibile and will work its way into the tanks processes.

 

[hot883]

You don't rinse live sand......................

 

[gatorcsm]

Originally Posted by hot883
You don't rinse live sand......................
He wasn't considering rinsing live sand.
He wanted to rinse non-live sand (with less than pure water) instead of buying live sand (since it didn't need rinsing) and wanted input on any ideas on how to rinse the regular sand without adding a bunch of crap to his tank.

 

[reefeel]

We have to send our water through an r/o to drink and I do the same for my tank it thanks to all the farmers dumping pesticides and manure on their fields. Maybe I am just to paranoid with what I put in the tank. :thinking:

 

[hot883]

Originally Posted by GatorCSM
He wasn't considering rinsing live sand.
He wanted to rinse live sand (with less than pure water) instead of buying live sand (since it didn't need rinsing) and wanted input on any ideas on how to rinse the regular sand without adding a bunch of crap to his tank.

re-read that and see if it makes sense. If falty water is an issue he should not be setting up an aquarium in the first place.

 

[gatorcsm]

re-read that and see if it makes sense. If falty water is an issue he should not be setting up an aquarium in the first place.
Perhaps you mis-read this thread, so far, it seems to make perfect sense to me, but perhaps i'm missing something. And... He discussed having RO/DI. Most people do not have good enough water to just put it in their tank (although there have been some that argue against that; but that's not the point). Anyway, as he just said:
We have to send our water through an r/o to drink and I do the same for my tank.
The point here is not that he is going to fill the tank with bad water.
The points are..
-He has poor mains water quality
-He doesn't want to rinse his sand with RO/DI (because it will take forever to make enough water)
-He is considering purchasing live sand (so he doesn't have to rinse it)
-He wants to know if there is anyway that he can rinse his regular sand(non-live) and use it in the tank.
-I simply stated that i think that he can rinse his sand with the water, because the amount of tap water used (unless really really bad; he didn't specify any real measure) he should be ok with doing this.

 

[oceanists]

Originally Posted by GatorCSM
He wasn't considering rinsing live sand.
He wanted to rinse non-live sand (with less than pure water) instead of buying live sand (since it didn't need rinsing) and wanted input on any ideas on how to rinse the regular sand without adding a bunch of crap to his tank.

hmmmmm.....
Im very confused

 

[gatorcsm]

Why is that confusing?
He has regular/non-live sand (to rinse).
He could purchase live sand.. and not rinse it.
he just wants to know how to rinse the non-live sand so he doesn't put bunches of stuff in his tank! More importantly, any ideas on what he might be able to do to minimize the risk of adding those things to his tank (nitrates/phosphates/etc)

 

[bonebrake]

Unless your tap water is radioactive, use your tap water to wash your sand. You will dilute any water that remains by at least 1000 fold and any remaining phosphate, nitrate, etc. will be negligible. Don't worry about it or go to any extra abundance of effort to get the tap water out of the sand.
:joy:

 

[kimc]

When I replaced the CC in my tank, I used CaribSea Aragonite sand, it came in 30lb bags. I rinsed it with tap water, I rinsed w/RO water and finally one last rinse w/saltwater. Probably overkill... I rinsed the sand because I needed to put the live rock, fish, etc back in the tank ASAP and didn't want to wait forever for the cloudiness to go away. Work fine for me... Good luck!!

 

[reefeel]

Thanks for the help. As usual I am overly parinoid of my tank. I guess this will be my project for Friday night. My ammonia, nitrites and nitrates are falling in the case of ammonia and rising in nitrites and nitrates so I guess now will be the best time. Anyone of any particular brands and types of sand they want to vouch for?

 

[acrylic51]

Originally Posted by GatorCSM
Unless i was mistaken, you're saying that your water is high in tds, has some nitrates and phosphate, correct?
I would imagine that if you can drain the sand fairly well prior to use, you would be left with less than a ppm of nitrate and anything else that you might be adding (unless this water is really really bad). Even if slightly higher than this, a water change could lower it further and once the tank is in operation, what is left will be neglibile and will work its way into the tanks processes.
I agree.......