How and Why You Should Rinse Your Dry Sand - A Few Helpful Methods

Welcome to Simple Reefs. My aim, on this website, is to help you own a slice of the ocean in your very own home. All while saving you money and keeping it as straightforward as possible. I want to take the jargon out of marine aquarium ownership. In this article, we are talking about how, and why, you should rinse your dry sand before adding it to your aquarium.

I am still in the very early stages of writing articles for this site and have been talking about sand, a lot, recently. A strange statement, I suppose, that makes me sound like an incredibly dull individual. But, when it comes to marine aquarium ownership, sand is a rather important subject. This article assumes that you have opted to go with a sand bed in your aquarium and decided Dry Sand would be the most affordable option.

If you have, somehow, stumbled on this article and are still unsure on whether you want a sand bed, or not. You can take a look at some of our Sand related articles to help you make an informed decision.

• Sand Beds in a Marine Aquarium – The Pros and Cons
• What is Live Sand and Can it Cycle an Aquarium Instantly?
• What is Dry Sand and How Can it Save You Money?

Dry sand is great value for money and will save you a ton in the long run. One thing to keep in mind, however, if you chose to go with dry sand then you are, likely, aware of one of the major cons. That stuff is dirty as hell. You are going to need to rinse it.

Why Do I Need to Rinse Dry Sand?

If you don’t rinse your dry sand, you will end up with enormously cloudy water that will last a ridiculously long time. There is a lot of ground up coral skeleton and dust bound up in the sand, as well as other, potential, loose contaminants. Not only will those contaminants make your water dirty straight away. They will remain in the sand, causing problems further down the line.

Rinsing the sand will send those much finer particles down the drain rather than leaving them in your tank. If you have already placed the sand in your tank, you are in for a bit of a fight but the issue can be fixed.

To clear the water up, you are going to need to use a filter, of some sort, which you should already have. And a hell of a lot of filter medium to trap the sand and dirt particles floating in the water. Keep changing the filter medium and stirring up the water. The filter will pull the water through and trap the dirt, eventually, after a few days, clearing up the water completely. Keep in mind, when anything touches the sand, it may kick up a whole ton of dirt that will have settled back into the sand. Starting the process again.

Rinsing the sand will avoid all of that and it is a very simple process. In this article, we are going to show you exactly how to do it. All of these methods will require a couple of things. Namely a food safe bucket, dry sand, a plate or pan lid to help drain the water from your bucket without losing your sand, and some dechlorinating liquid to make the sand safe for immediate use when we are done rinsing it. But, first, a quick warning.

Don’t Rinse Live Sand

Before we start, none of the following steps apply to Live Sand. Live Sand should be placed into the aquarium wet to preserve the bacteria. It can be lightly rinsed with salt water but shouldn’t be necessary and any cloudiness caused by Live sand should clear up quickly. I have used tons of Live Sand and never waited longer than a day for it to clear up.

Many live sands even come with a bio-magnet clarifying substance which will help clear up the water. Distributing the bacteria over the rocks and surfaces of the aquarium. Never use any of the methods below for rinsing live sand, it is simply a waste of time and detrimental to the product. In fact, using the below techniques will kill the bacteria in live sand causing massive problems.

How Do You Rinse Dry Sand – The Easy Way?

I suppose you could say that this is a case of easy way = best way. All of the methods we are about to show you will get the job done, however. This way just happens to be the least effort. You need a couple of things that not every household will have, though. Especially in the UK where I am from, and flats without gardens are much more common.

What Will I need?

You are going to need a food safe bucket, a garden that you don’t mind getting very wet, a hosepipe and no hosepipe ban. You will also need a plate or pan lid to help with draining the water and some dechlorinating liquid to make the sand safe for immediate use when done.

Keep in mind that, with regards to water, this method is rather wasteful. If you are on a water meter, expect some increased usage and if you are mindful of waste you may not want to do this at all. I would suggest doing it somewhere where some flowers or grass will benefit from the water run off.

What Are The Steps?

1. Open your bag of sand and fill a food safe bucket around half way with the sand.
2. Place the bucket outside in an area where water runoff won’t cause a problem. Things are going to get wet.
3. Take a garden hose and shove it right down through the middle of the sand, right to the bottom.
4. Turn the hose on enough to fill up the bucket and watch to make sure the sand doesn’t overflow.
5. Making sure the sand doesn’t overflow, leave the water running and keep watch until it begins to run clear.
6. When the water runs clear, move the hose, agitating the sand and making the water cloudy again.
7. Repeat this process until no amount of agitation with the hose will make the water cloudy. When the water is completely clear, the sand is clean.
8. I prefer to fill the bucket of sand with water one last time and add some Dechlorinating liquid to the water, as instructed on the bottle. Water supplies will contain chlorine and other metals which can be harmful to aquatic life. Taking this extra step will remove any chlorine that may have become bound up in the sand from rinsing it. Making it safe to place in your tank. Leave it an hour, or two, to do its job and then it should be good to go.
9. Use a plate over the sand, or a pan lid, to keep the sand from pouring out of the bucket and pour the water away. You can now place the sand in your aquarium. If you skip step 8, you need to give the sand a few days to dry to make it safe for use. Do not use the sand wet without dechlorinating it using the method above.

How Do You Rinse Dry Sand – The Long Way?

So let’s say you don’t have a hose or a garden and need to do this the long way. This process of rinsing your sand is very simple and doesn’t require anything other than a bucket and a tap or shower head. It just takes a bit longer.

I would suggest doing this in your bath but make sure to clean it out afterwards. You don’t want anyone’s butt being accidentally exfoliated by sand residue left in the tub.

What Will I need?

You are going to need a food safe bucket, a plate or pan lid to help with draining the water, and some dechlorinating liquid to make the sand safe for immediate use when done. This is the least wasteful method when it comes to the amount of water used.

What Are The Steps?

1. Open your bag of sand and fill a food safe bucket around half way with the sand.
2. Place the bucket under the cold water tap in your bath.
3. Turn on the tap and begin filling the bucket with water.
4. Leave the tap running until the bucket is almost full, being careful not to overflow the bucket, and then turn off the tap.
5. Stir up the sand with a big wooden spoon or, simply, your hands. Being sure to agitate it and get it all mixed up.
6. Pour the now cloudy water away. Using a plate or pan lid over the top of the sand to stop the sand pouring out of the bucket at the same time.
7. Repeat this process over and over again until the water is clear after stirring up the sand. This may take a good few times, there aren’t too many shortcuts to speed this process up, unfortunately. When the water is clear, even after agitating the sand, the sand is clean.
8. I prefer to fill the bucket of sand with water one last time and add some Dechlorinating liquid to the water, as instructed on the bottle. Water supplies will contain chlorine and other metals which can be harmful to aquatic life. Taking this extra step will remove any chlorine that may have become bound up in the sand from rinsing it. Making it safe to place in your tank. Leave it an hour or two to do its job and then it should be good to go.
9. Pour the water away, again using your pan lid or plate to prevent the sand leaving the bucket with the water, and place the sand in your aquarium. If you skip step 8, you need to give the sand a few days to dry to make it safe for use. Do not use the sand wet without dechlorinating it using the method above.

How Do You Rinse Dry Sand – The Risky Way?

This method combines the first two methods into one, slightly risky, but very convenient way to rinse dry sand with little effort. I am not promoting this method as you will, almost certainly, lose some of your sand over the side of the bucket.

In fact, I am not sure if this method will work at all with finer grains of sand. I have only ever done it with heavier sand. Still, if you carefully observe it, you can move quickly to turn off the tap and avoid disaster.

What Will I need?

You are going to need a food safe bucket, a plate or pan lid to help with draining the water, and some dechlorinating liquid to make the sand safe for immediate use when done.

Keep in mind that, with regards to water, this method is rather wasteful. If you are on a water meter, expect some increased usage and if you are mindful of waste you may not want to do this at all. I would suggest doing it somewhere where some flowers or grass will benefit from the water run off.

What Are The Steps?

1. Open your sand and fill a food safe bucket around a third of the way with the sand.
2. Place the bucket under a cold water tap. An outdoor tap is preferrable to avoid potential blockages to your bath’s drain.
3. Turn on the tap and begin filling the bucket with water.
4. Leave the tap running. Allowing it to overflow the top of the bucket. Carefully observe to make sure the sand isn’t leaving the bucket. Most of the time, you may lose a little but the sand will be packed together and should stay in the bottom of the bucket.
5. When the water begins to run clear, stop the tap. Stir up the sand with a big wooden spoon or, simply, your hands. Being sure to agitate it and get it all mixed up.
6. Run the tap again, allowing it to overflow and run clear, making sure the sand isn’t leaving the bucket.
7. Repeat the above steps until the water from the tap runs clear consistently, even after agitating the sand. When the water is clear, the sand is clean.
8. I prefer to fill the bucket of sand with water one last time and add some Dechlorinating liquid to the water, as instructed on the bottle. Water supplies will contain chlorine and other metals which can be harmful to aquatic life. Taking this extra step will remove any chlorine that may have become bound up in the sand from rinsing it. Making it safe to place in your tank. Leave it an hour or two to do its job and then it should be good to go.
9. Pour the water away, again using your pan lid or plate to prevent the sand leaving the bucket with the water, and place the sand in your aquarium. If you skip step 8, you need to give the sand a few days to dry to make it safe for use. Do not use the sand wet without dechlorinating it using the method above.

Again, this method is risky and doing it in your bath tub could leave you with a very blocked up drain. I won’t lie, I have done this before and not had any issues but I don’t recommend it. It’s safer to use either of the above two methods. One just takes a lot longer than the other.

In Short

Rinsing dry sand is imperative to preventing horribly cloudy water. It’s a time consuming task but will save you a lot of pain in the long run. Any of the above methods should suffice. Just be sure to use dechlorinating liquid, as detailed in the steps above, to make the sand safe for use. Otherwise, you will need to let the sand dry for a few days before adding it to your aquarium.

Now that your dry sand is in your aquarium. We can move onto the process of making it live. There are a few ways to do this and we will go over them in an upcoming article.