Washing the sand

[cutechic]

I bought some regular playsand from Rona a few weeks ago and finally got around to washing it. I poured 10lbs of sand in a 5 gallon bucket and put a hose in the bucket. I let the water spill over the sides of the bucket, because the powdery no-good sand is supposed to go with it, right? After about 45 minutes, the water came out clear, so I turned off the hose. To my surprise, there was about 200 grams left of sand left in the bucket- the rest had gone with the gravel.

What did I do wrong?

 

[jams.alaskan]

Your hose had too much flow to it and picked up the sand with it and spilled it over the lip. For your next time around just try washing say a lb at a time by swishing it around and letting the really light stuff exit - that way you can gauge what's leaving your bucket.

ALASKA

 

[DOLORES]

i dont know what "hose" means, but i did 10 in a 4 or 3 gallon or 5 i dunno bucket and i spent 30 hr in the laundry room washing it with hot water, and mixin the same sand from the bottom to the top with my hand till the water came out clear


hope that helped cc

 

[cutechic]

Thanks for the quick replies Alaska and Dolores. I'll try washing some more sand tomorrow using your method. I'll let you know how it goes. Thanks again

P.S. By hose I meant the garden hose, Dolores.

 

[JeremyD]

My super quick sand cleaning method...........


If using play sand/pool filter sand/etc...
Fill up an old cooler with all your sand. Fill it up with water almost to the top. Using a large stick (I use a small aluminum pipe), stir up the sand for a minute. I then siphon the water off and do this about 4-5 more times.

If using real beach sand...
First thing I do is fill a large (5 gallon) stock pot with water and bring it to a boil. The sand is added in slowly until its all in there. I then let it boil and continue boiling and keep stirring it for about an hour. Once it has cooled down, I rinse it in a cooler as mentioned above. Alternatively, you can store it for about 24-48 hours in a loosely cover container with about a 5% bleach solution. Rinse several times. I usually let it stand for about a week with fresh water, changing the water daily. I prefer to just boil it though. Less hassle.......


When sand is placed in my tank it never takes more than about 12-14 hours for all the sand to settle. I've never had a filter jam up either because of the sand.

 

[cutechic]

Thanks for that Jeremy.

The weather's finally clearing up, so I'll try washing it again in a bit.

 

[smithrc]

I washed 2 bags today... after doing the bucket method for a short while - i used a dustbid

Worked a treat

 

[cutechic]

Dustbid?

 

[Max]

Dustbid?

i duno what is dustbit? any ways i clean mine useing a 5g bucket spray it till it aslmost full then pour it out making sure no sand comes out

sry for my spelling im in a hurry (not to metion puctuation)

 

[cutechic]

Maybe dustbin.

Anyway, I started washing some more sand today. I sprayed the hose into the bucket, swished the water around a bit, waited for the larger bits of sand to settle again, and then poured the water + powdery sand out.

I had to stop halfway through because the water was flowing into my neighbour's garden (our house is above his on a hill), and he noticed it

I'll finish up tomorrow while he's at church

 

[freshmike]

Pillowcase. Yup.

 

[vantgE]

I used the same sand and also sorta gave up washing it, until i went to my lfs and they said they use the rona sand to and showed me theres it was nice and clean so i went home and worked on it for another hour filled the bucket with water the second time the hose was quite powerful and it stired it up let it settle for ten fifteen seconds and poured out all the muddy stuff abou ten times for each five gallon bucket i had also done the thing where you overfill the bucket with watter while stirring this eventually didn't work well and all iu did was stir out sand but still had mud, so i gave up and what i did next was the geginning of the story, good luck it will get clean just extra dity stuff

I also ended up buying too much sand and only needed about half a bag for my 90gallon but had a quarter 25lb bag of some really expensive buffering small gravel added as well have a ton of that left over too

 

[cutechic]

I bought a 55lb bag (smallest size), but somehow there is only 25lbs left in the bag.

There will still be plenty of sand left over, so I can redo my ugly 10 gallon hot pink tank

 

[freshmike]

....but hot pink is cool!!!

 

[smithrc]

sorry - Dustbin