Cleaning sand
- Thread starter hiimsean
- Start date
5g buckets and a good bit of water. If you're trying to save the bacteria (it's possible), you have to use saltwater. Other than that, I put a few inches in the bottom of a 5g bucket, add some water, swirl and dump. Do that a few time until the water is mostly clean and dump it out for drying. I've done this a few times over the years and the biggest issue is getting the stuff dry. Especially right now with all the pollen. The most effective way I've discovered is to use a large pan or sheet and spread it out as much as possible. I have some generic cat litter boxes that I used for this purpose. Usually if I'm just going to store the sand, I'll clean it over the course of a few weeks.
Why do you dry it out? I've watched Melevsreef's video on washing his sand and he doesn't dry it out and just puts it's straight back into his system.
I dry it out for storage which is usually what I'm after. Even a little moisture can cause some mildew bad smells in general. This is also why I typically use freshwater to clean the stuff. If I was cleaning sand to be used back in the same tank or another system, I would rinse with saltwater and add directly back.
