Cleaning sand

[Koh23]

Help and ideas needed...

I don't talk about washing new sand, i try to figure best way to clean used sand....

Story is, i have some amount of sugar size (fine) sand, i think it's Fiji, or maybe aqua forrest, not sure. It's dry, rinsed many many times, nothing can be rinsed more, but sand had discoloration, brownish-greenish colors on grains....

Not sure how to eliminate this, so far, rinsing, boiling, drying on sun - nothing worked, coloration is still there....

Only option is try to use some vinegar on small amount of sand, maybe this will remove coloration, i suspect this is algae?

Vinegar shouldn't dissolve even sand so quickly, or?

Thanx for your thoughts, in advance.....

 

[Dburr1014]

Vinegar will disolve some of its aragonite sand.
Have you tried bleach and rinse/sun dry?

 

[LeftyReefer]

5 gallon bucket, some water, and maybe a couple bottles of H202. Paint mixer on a drill and go to town.

Sand is already abrasive, just use a high speed drill/mixer in a bucket and it should clean up pretty easy. The H202 will dissolve any algae and won't need rinsing afterwards like bleach would.

 

[dakoop]

If it bothers you that much there is always new sand

 

[Koh23]

Bleach, of course..... :eek: (there's no smiley hitting its face, so this one will do) ;)

Also, peroxide, another great idea....

 

[ClownSchool]

5 gallon bucket, some water, and maybe a couple bottles of H202. Paint mixer on a drill and go to town.

Sand is already abrasive, just use a high speed drill/mixer in a bucket and it should clean up pretty easy. The H202 will dissolve any algae and won't need rinsing afterwards like bleach would.

Citric acid is another option….but, this^^ should work.

 

[kados]

I bleach sand and reuse across tanks all the time. With the final rinse I use some dechlorinator (Seachem Prime). Looks brand new.