ideas for cleaning used sand 300+ lbs

[PPBlimpy]

Trying to come up with a decent way to clean a lot of used sand. I break down buy/sell and part out / set up a lot of tanks. So i always have a bunch of sand

I currently have 3-400lbs of sand needing to be cleaned.

5 gallon bucket method uses a lot of water and time.

I tried a 5G bucket with bulkhead, sitting in a kiddie pool with a return pump and filter sock. sort of worked but couldn't get the sand tumbling and still took forever.

I am now thinking bigger and finding a cement mixer, grabbing my spare 100g horse trough a return pump and a 27g tub with a bunch of holes and stuffing with old bathroom towels as filter media.

Pump sits in horse trough sending water into drum, drum tumbles dirty sand, water spilling into tub catching all the crap and then water returns to horse trough.
once clean I can dump and repeat. Then when all clean I can just reload with the clean sand, ad bleach and let it cycle, rinse and dry.

thoughts???

Ken

 

[TX_REEF]

I wonder if you could find or make a giant fine metal mesh bowl of sorts? seems like that would make your life a lot easier

 

[PPBlimpy]

Maybe. Will look around

 

[PPBlimpy]

I wonder if you could find or make a giant fine metal mesh bowl of sorts? seems like that would make your life a lot easier

would be a lot of manual work but i bet for small qty gold panning disc would work well. but your talking a handful at a time

 

[PPBlimpy]

Well rented a cement mixer for the weekend.

About 30lbs sand in the drum. Still fine tuning

 

[PPBlimpy]

Update. Works great.

The sand I am cleaning has been sitting outside in covered tubs and 5 gallon buckets for months. Sand is a mix of every grain size but crushed coral. From 5 or 6 different tanks.

30-40 lb batches take 20 minutes.

I ditched the tub and filter sock water recirculating setup.

It still takes lots of water and it took me two batches to realize I will never get the water running perfectly clear while tumbling. It goes from dark brown / black water to a very light white/tan.

The tumbling is actually grinding down the sand and the stuff left is dust in the water. So when I get to that point I stop tumbling and rinse by hand for a minutes and then I have nice clean sand.

No smell, just clean sand.

Laying out a tarp to dump the sand on and let it sun dry

$50 rental for the win.

 

[VintageReefer]

What’s do you want to do with this sand

 

[PPBlimpy]

What’s do you want to do with this sand

I have always just cleaned and reused sand.
All this was originally saved for my 300g.

I am setting up a 210 this weekend so it will go in that.

 

[PPBlimpy]

Only thing I may do still is fill the tubs that have the clean sand with water, and dump a gallon of 30% vinegar in both, stir it every 10 min and rinse after and hour or two. The. Dry it

 

[Celestion]

a young person can clean it all 2hours , old school 5g bucket and water , some garbage will still collected by the skimmer at later a time.

 

[PPBlimpy]

Also I do realize there is possible contaminations and crap using the cement mixer. I understand I am risking it.

 

[PPBlimpy]

well it was a success. Cleaned about 300 lbs in 5-6 hours. ditched the recirculating setup. Still used a lot of water.

cant tumble to long because the sand actually grinds its self up. had to rince really good to get rid of the white foggy water.

150+ lbs is in my tank and the rest laid out to dry for another tank.

 

[PPBlimpy]

Tank transfer was successful.

Glad to have sand back in the system.

Blimpy was constantly swimming around looking for his cave rock from the old tank. Found it and I think he is pretty happy.