• How to Rinse and Reuse an Old Sandbed

    There is always someone who is just starting in this hobby and may not know some of the things we take for granted. I'm all about documenting step-by-step instructions for just about anything and everything I do so that one day, someone can google it, and find a reassuring article on what they are about to venture forth and do. Having said that, I had to rinse out and reuse my old sand from my 150-gallon tank. This sand had sat in a large 50 gallon trash can on the side of my parents house for over 18 months. Open to the elements and rain. But, hey why not make use of it for the next tank!?

    Step One: Bribe a stronger friend to schlep your heavy bucket of sand around for you. Rule #1 of Reefing- Its always funner to do tasks with other reef buddies.
    I don't need all of it for my new tank, so I went to my parents' house and got a shovel and a 5-gallon bucket and scooped out what I thought I would need and took it home. The bucket was full, and filling it with water and swishing it would have made a huge mess so I opted to transfer the sand into something more manageable. I happened to have an 18-gallon bin on hand that I just purchased to help with my future water changes, so into the bin the sand went.

    Step 2: Pour sand into an easy to manage receptacle.

    Step 3: Fill the bucket up with water, leaving enough room to swish around without spillage.
    It only filled up about the bottom four inches which allowed me to fill up the bin with water from my garden hose to at least the halfway point. I swished the sand around and looked for debris that I didn't want in my new tank. I found all manners of things from frag plugs, dead snail shells, and even dead frags still on their plugs.

    Step 4: Remove larger debris from the sand.
    I took all this out and then dumped the water out of the tub. I did this at least four or five more times until the water stopped raising with a dirty foam and debris on the top. It wasn't coming out clear by any means, but I was certain that it was clean enough for my purposes.

    Step 5: Empty the water out of the bin and refill four or five times over. Making sure to swish around the sand in the new water each time.
    Step 6 Optional: Trick the neighbor's kid into thinking it is fun to help.
    I still have to wait for my rock to come in before I can add the sand to my new tank, so for now it is resting a little sloppily in the five gallon bucket next to the tank. I didn't bother getting every last drip of water out, it won't really cause that much trouble in the tank. I'm planning on using melev's directions on how to add sand to an existing tank because I'm doing the aquascape and water first.
    Comments 8 Comments
    1. Pranoti's Avatar
      Pranoti -
      Great step by step write up.
    1. Midnight's Avatar
      Midnight -
      You forgot to use soap on the sand...that way you can break in the new skimmer faster.
    1. trplxj's Avatar
      trplxj -
      Something that I have found from washing enough sand to fill my 90, 125, 180, and 500 gallon FW (fresh water) tanks. Is that the sand will litterly "sand" the skin right off your finger tips. I wear those big rubber gloves for doing household cleaning when I wash sand. Much easier on the finger tips. Great write up though
    1. Jessy's Avatar
      Jessy -
      Quote Originally Posted by trplxj View Post
      Something that I have found from washing enough sand to fill my 90, 125, 180, and 500 gallon FW (fresh water) tanks. Is that the sand will litterly "sand" the skin right off your finger tips. I wear those big rubber gloves for doing household cleaning when I wash sand. Much easier on the finger tips. Great write up though
      Hey who can't use a little exfoliation on the hands every once in a while?
    1. melev's Avatar
      melev -
      Great write up, Jessy. Can't believe you tricked a kid into helping.
    1. FabRight's Avatar
      FabRight -
      So your a fan of Tom Sawyer
    1. Xler8n's Avatar
      Xler8n -
      Nice Article. I heard on a few sites that it may not be good to reuse old substrate. It pretty much has a shelf life and gets imbedded with Nitrates and Phosphates. Especially when your like me and used the old school crushed coral from my FOWLR tank for my reef. Maybe Mark can chime in.
    1. Jessy's Avatar
      Jessy -
      I haven't had any problem with nitrates or phosphates from this sand. Maybe if the sand was 5 years old I'd think twice but I had only a year in on this substrate. It sat and dried out so long in the elements outside it was soooo dead when I started.