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Play Sand Sucks!

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Rynofasho

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I bought a 50lb bag and put it all in a 55L tub. I've been rinsing this stuff for an hour and it still is all kindsa dirty when I stir it up. I also spent a good amount of time with a strainer getting out some of the bigger pieces of gravel and all that.

Hopefully I'll be done be in the next two hours or something, geez! The worst part is I cant even put it in the tank today!
 
That's strange, I started using play sand a few years ago and back then I got told it was compleatly safe to put in the tank as it is intended for kids it has already been cleaned out etc. So for the past few years I have just been using as is, to date I have had in all my tanks I have owned not one unhealthy fish and up untill recently as I am down scaling had some old large fish, Angels bigger than any I have seen else where, Pleco around 15", my Goriamies are large, talking cat fish over 7".

Play sand is what I use because its easy, cheap & quock to use.
 
if you cover the sand with a plastic sheet, bin liner or something when you pour the water in, it won't cloud up nearly as much. i learnt from experience, there's not many things worse than waiting for a tank to clear when you've already spent ages cleaning sand :)

Andy
 
Where do people buy black sand enough for 10G tanks
 
i have one bag of flourite black sand in my 10G, it's enough for 2 inches deep. It's even messier than play sand though. http://www.aquaessentials.co.uk/seachem-flourite-black-sand-7kg-p-1737.html


DSC_0020.jpg
 
That's a lovely looking tank!

Ryno.........how did you have gravel in your sand?
 
Well, I wouldnt call it gravel necessarily, but just bigger bits that looked like very small rocks, maybe only 1 or 2mm. There was enough of it to annoy me though, so I figured since I'll probably looking at it for the next who knows how many years, I may as well sift some of the bigger bits out.

Ended up taking about 1.25 hours to do 50lbs. Could have been worse I suppose. Now I have to order some plants this week and get ready to completely overhaul the tank next weekend!

And Andy, thanks for the tip, that is actually a fantastic idea. When I do water changes, since I have to just start pouring water in out of a 5 gallon bucket, would it be wise to turn off the filter for a minute so it doesnt suck in a ton of sand from what gets kicked up?
 
Cleaning the dust off the playsand is the small price we pay for a large saving in expense.
The initial big clean is a real pain but after that its quite easy to clean any sand you use to top up after vacuming etc.
 
I've never got my mind round what happens when you clean the sand while it's in use. Do you just use a gravel cleaner to suck it up and then put it back in after?
 
Rynofasho said:
I bought a 50lb bag and put it all in a 55L tub. I've been rinsing this stuff for an hour and it still is all kindsa dirty when I stir it up. I also spent a good amount of time with a strainer getting out some of the bigger pieces of gravel and all that.

Hopefully I'll be done be in the next two hours or something, geez! The worst part is I cant even put it in the tank today!
Click to expand...

50lb bag of PlaySand?
with large bits in it?
where you get it from?

perhaps you need to check your vendor. the playsand we all talk about, comes i 15kg bag and is child safe. this means no large bits. ?I dont know what you bought. but its not the playsand we all buy and talk about.
 
Joshwainwright said:
I've never got my mind round what happens when you clean the sand while it's in use. Do you just use a gravel cleaner to suck it up and then put it back in after?
Click to expand...


Sand is not like gravel where the waste gets into the substrate. With sand it just sits on the top. so when you do a clean you just suck the waste from the top rather than digging the cleaner into the substrate. What little sand thae does get removed is easily replaced, after all, its cheap.
 
Okay, thanks. I haven't used sand as of yet but I will be in the Roma 125 that I'm getting shortly.
 
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