Sand may come sooner than expected!

[Ellen4God]

Well, my sister and her family are living with us right now until they buy a new house (which will hopefully be by the middle/end of the summer!!!). Her kids have a sand box that has had dirty dirty sand in it since they moved in, so my dad went out to get them some new sand and bought waaaay too much. I thoughtfully piped in and offered to take the extra sand off their hands. lol

So, now I have some planning to do. I have play sand - nothing spectacular about it or anything - it's just Plain Jane play sand. It's the "natural" color or whatever, which is the color of the rocks I have in my tank right now, so that works out well, I reckon. I won't be changing the color scheme of my tank to do this.

I know I need to clean the sand, but I'm not sure how much I should clean. It's for a 10g tank (and I may do my 5.5g after I do my 10g). Dad said he has two extra bags of sand, which are about 25-50lbs each, maybe (wide range, I know lol)? So, I definitely have enough for my tank. I just don't want to clean too much or too little of it - ya know?

Also - how long will this transition take, do you think? Could I do it all in one day - empty my tank out, clean the sand (which, I should probably clean the sand on another day, right?), put the sand in my tank, set it up , and then put the fish back in - ? Or, do I need to plan on it taking longer than that? Should I put the fish into just buckets of water, or put them into something that my filter can hook up to?

Lots of questions, I know, but I wasn't expecting to have the sand so soon. lol It was always an idea that I liked to have, but never really knew when it would happen. I'm going to Paris June 9-19, so I may wait until after that to do this, but it'd be GREAT to do it this week sometime. I don't know.

Suggestions?

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[Ellen4God]

bump. bump.

[Tigerbarb]

If you don't change your filter cartridge, you should be fine boiling the sand and putting it in. I would highly suggest putting the fish into buckets to relieve the stress of sand clouding. Keep the fish in the bucket(s) overnight, or maybe up to 48 hrs until the sediment has settled. I'd suggest doing a few back-to-back water changes to speed up the clearing of the sand.

[smaug]

Id like to help,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,but I dont use sand Have a balloon!!!

[smoochxoxo]

just make sure it is ok for aquarium use. Some play sand bags say not for use in aquarium on it. Another thing is play sand granuals compact more than pool filter sand, so it will stir up easier when you do things in the tank like clean and what not.

You wont need much for either of the 2 tanks. I bought a bag of pool filter sand and used maybe 1/4 (if that much) of the bag on the 10G I have. I haven't done the 5 gallon yet and might not but I don't even thing between the 2 tanks you would even use half the bag.

It might take quite a while for the sand to settle in the tank even when you cleaned the crud out of it. I would think that you might want to have a tote or something similar you could use as the in between tank so you give it enough time to settle. You don't want the particles in your filter that would make a mess. Also keep the same water and gravel in with the fish that way you wont loose all that good bacteria. When you put the sand in and it settles you can use most of that water and add some fresh (more or less like a water change would be) then add a good bunch of gravel in a clean piece of panty hose and hang it near your filter. That should keep you good maybe even away from a mini cycle all together.

Just remember with sand you will have a greater chance of brown algae since there is silica in it. just do partial water changes and all should be fine within a month or 2.
GL

[houie925]

sand should be washed at least a few times. I'd say 5 times should be enough. no matter how much you rinse it, the sand will still cloud the water for a day or so.
sand will only slightly compact in the water so 10 gallons you need about 14 cups of sand per inch. it weighs right about 100 lbs ber square foot so 20x10/12=1.39 square feet/12x100=11.6 lbs dry sand per inch. whichever way you want to measure it

[Ellen4God]

Thanks for all of the information! I'm still not exactly sure when I'll do this, or the method in which I'll use to do it. I have 6 danios, 1 oto, and a ton of shrimp in this tank. I don't have any extra tanks, so I'm not quite sure what I could use to keep them. We do have a big box that we used for the kids' baths when we had to get our plumbing repaired, so I reckon I could use that as a make-shift "tank" for a day or two.

So, I boil the sand? I thought I would just put it in a bucket and run lots of water through it or whatever - does that make sense? I reckon I could boil it if I needed to, I just wasn't expecting that necessity.

Any other suggestions? I'm a bit concerned about trying to get the shrimp out of the tank, but I'll do it somehow. lol

Thanks for the balloon, smaug. :]

[Ellen4God]

Don't mean to double post, but I've been doing a lot of reading on the forum about sand. I may just go out and get some pool filter sand instead of using what I have right now. From what I can see, people have found it pretty cheap (a couple bucks - ?), it doesn't require the intensive cleansing that play sand would, and it is easier to siphon debris off of. Is that correct?

Would going out to buy pool filter sand as opposed to using the free play sand available to me really be worth it?

[Lady Hobbs]

Play sand is for childrens areas and has already been disinfected. It needs no boiling. Just rinse it several times.

[jb300m01]

Play sand is for childrens areas and has already been disinfected. It needs no boiling. Just rinse it several times.

Agreed. Here is what I did:
1. Find a bucket (I used a 2 gallon mop bucket, it was clean)
2. Fill said bucket between 1/2 & 2/3 full of sand
3. Put hose in sand and turn on water.
4. Let bucket fill up (the first fillup will have a lot of foam, that's normal) Empty water.
5. Repeat, stirring sand with hand as desired.
6. Eventually (about 6-7 fill ups and emties for me) the water will stay clear when you stir it i.e. the sand should settle within a few seconds after you stop stirring.
7. Empty water and dump sand in tank.
8. Repeat until you have your desired depth.

After I filled the tank (75 gallons) half way with water, I stirred the sand up to see how cloudy it was. It wasn't bad so I just left it. If yours is cloudy, stir it up real good and drain the tank. This might save you from having to do a full water change later.

For me, the pool sand I looked at was too white for my liking (I have white sand in my current tank) The play sand has a much more natural color to it. It is your tank though so chose whatever you want to. It will turn out great either way!

ps. J'aime Paris!