Flourite sand conversion

[ellner357]

Well I'm a man of action, not a man of planning. So I went out and bought a couple of bags of flourite black sand. I figured I would save what sunset hydro I've got left and some corkscrew val I think it was. Most of my other plants bombed from lack of nutrients and lack of attention and I decided to renew my tank with black sand... Well I have used white non flourite sand and it didn't need to be rinsed. So much for that theory. After pulling the fish out of the tank a handfull of times I finaly have the rinsed final product in. Now I feel like I may have lost to much sand rinsing. Because I I figured two bags on a 33 gal would have been plenty. Am I wrong? It's still pretty thin at the bottom. Way thinner than it was the first round pre rinse. I was careful but I'm wondering if it is normal to lose a lot of sand rinsing or if I just blew it.

[Melody]

There's a question I've been meaning to ask! Thanks for reminding me and pardon the piggyback ride I'm taking on your thread....lol.

What is the best way to rinse sand that is effective, but you don't lose half of it? The most effective method I've come up with is lining a colander a piece of old satin sheet. Then I shovel the sand out rather than dumping it so the dust on the sheet doesn't come with it. I use a big elastic band to secure the sheet around the outside. Surely there's a better way than ruining my sheets? :laugh: For small amounts that I use in the filter, I just use a BBS net.

As to the question already asked, sand is much more compact when under water so you may be seeing that.

[ellner357]

Well I used a bucket and just ran my tap into it at full bore. I had the sand in there before the rinse and it really seems like I lost nearly half of it. So I'm thinking my rinsing may have been to agressive I don't know. But It's not at all cloudy now lol. Not deep enough for plants and all my plant scraps are dead so far this hasn't gained me anything but hey eventually. I would like a better way for when I buy one more bad of this expensive stuff. 50 bucks a bag and I'm gonna be buying my 3rd it's pretty brutal.

[brnttoast]

i just fill a pail about 1/4 full of sand, run the hose while stiring the sand with my hand
let the sand settle to the bottom, pour out water slowly making sure i stop before sand spills out
repeat this till water is clear
pour clean sand in a pail, then repeat till the whole bag is empty or pail of clean sand is full

[Melody]

This sand thing is an expensive pain. This is one of those things we can't discuss outside of the hobby. Telling people we spent $150 on three bags of sand, which we spent half of our weekend rinsing... :nah:

Thanks for the tips! I think I'm aggressive too (nobody touch that) because the only time I tried to use a bucket, I lost most of it too. :twitcy:

[fishclubgirl]

I admit I haven't used the flourite sand(but have some for the next shrimp tank). However, I do use a mix of sand, flourite and gravel for all my planted tanks. My sand, I soak and skim off the debris so I don't lose a lot. I don't rinse my flourite too much as the dust is the good stuff. I do get the filter going and use a water clarifier to get the tank going. Not sure if this helps!!

[blainep]

I haven't used the Flourite sand, but I know the general recommendation for regular Flourite is to pour it into a dry tank unwashed, then cap it with washed Flourite.
Then when you fill the tank, put a small dish on top of the Flourite and siphon water into dish so the water dosen't disturb the unwashed Flourite.

The water will be a little cloudy but it will settle in a day or two.

I would guess the same would probably apply to Flourite sand.

[ellner357]

Hmm thats not a bad idea as far a capping it goes. When I but another bag I'll just cap it with what I've already rinsed and hope for the best. I already lost one angel fish to stress in this mess.

[Malibu]

I haven't used flourite, but when I put in just regular sand, I put it into 5 gal pail a bit at a time, ran water into it, and then once I had disturbed it enough to get most of the dust out of it, I used my siphon and vacuumed it as if it were in the tank. Then I ran more water into it and just siphoned out the water from the top that was still a little cloudy. It worked to get most of the crap out. I think you will always have a little cloudiness with brand new substrate, but this kept it from looking like a fog machine had exploded...

[ckmullin]

Perhaps they are reducing the amount of dust in their sands...

I had recently washed two bags of their black sand...each bag aprox 30 min, then the water is nice and clear.

Just used a 5 gal pail...throw in one bag...put the pail in the tub and turned on the water half ways. Using my hand to stir it up every couple of min...all it took.

Perhaps the trick is a pail rim that is high enough so the sand will float around but still not get washed out.

Less pain than I thought!