Rinse or don't rinse bagged live sand?

[Tyler Miceli]

Not to say there is a right or wrong answer, but I've done both and rinsing it til the water is crystal clear in a 5 gallon bucket is the best way for me. If you dont rinse the sand bed will be very cloudy everytime you move it and creates a huge mess. I could move my sandbed around completely and not a spec of dust comes from

 

[Tyler Miceli]

the coolest trick is the tap rinse on a running reef, ye do over.

Can do, it does not cause a recycle whatsoever. so if anyone has a nano or accessible tank or just wants the bed cleaned, can do. we'd take apart your entire reef, hold corals rocks fish elsewhere, clean the sand outside the tank in tap water until 100% clear, then ro final rinse, then back in.

stack it all back in, it doesn't cause a recycle because sandbed bacteria are extra above what is needed, like running 6 extra canister filters. You can do that on any reef, harmless extra surface area. and when it comes time to remove them, or tap rinse them, that they're extra is why it doesn't matter.

the risk in doing a sandbed cleaning on a running tank is under-doing it, not the actual rinse. people rinsing only halfway/partially out of fear of bacterial loss causes losses, whereas completely totally blast-cleaned sand like a snowglobe cannot cause a recycle, its only sandgrains. if there is aged rotting detritus in the sandbed that's the dangerous stuff, a newish bed is no prob

Im not sure how those links could be read, the ones saying the clouding has lasted ten days pls help, and still recommend no rinse

I did exactly what Brandon said and sucked all my old sand out and rinsed it til it was crystal clear, worked wonders! I have pics from the old post that I need to find

 

[flyline]

From what I’ve read it doesn’t hurt the bacteria to rinse it out

 

[infinite0180]

Another vote to rinse it. Or dont put it in at all :x

 

[Kyl]

I didn't rinse my fiji pink in the 60g, I regretted it for a month while that caked on film took forever to get rid of. The clarifier / binder only does so much, "live" fiji made a giant mess.

 

[Tyler Miceli]

I didn't rinse my fiji pink in the 60g, I regretted it for a month while that caked on film took forever to get rid of. The clarifier / binder only does so much, "live" fiji made a giant mess.

Dude I regretted it so much when I just dumped a bag in, I was so mad lol, until i sucked it all out and rinsed it about 60 times until it was crystal clear the problem didnt go away

 

[brandon429]

I still think someone could make a million bucks selling pre rinsed live sand. on the bag put *this sand runs clear from the start* then proceed to make one million dollars.

*for sure that caribsea sand and its clarifier pack/flocculent pack has worked and has settled for many. but, for those it doesn't settle for like in my top links, they have nobody to help. they get told to wait longer...so we revolted against unrinsed sand and now 100% are happy if they pre rinse, and 70% are happy if they choose not to. we simply gave a 1oo% happy option by breaking ranks and doing the rinse.

one of our links above had a powerhead dislodge and opaque the tank with fish in it etc, an avoidable mess.

 

[vetteguy53081]

I don't rinse and use the aragamilk that comes with it

 

[Tyler Miceli]

I would honestly recommend anyone to give a look at some of Brandon's posts about rip cleaning sandbeds. I was worried about doing it but it was the best thing I could've done

 

[ca1ore]

What do the instructions say?

 

[brandon429]

they say to add the flocculant pack and it will settle in time.

The directions don't work about half the time though. there are no follow up directions on how to deal with two weeks of continual full clouding for the unlucky

it would be amazing if Caribsea would run a sand access thread live time for their products, and go about fixing things for all entrants by not rinsing. Id pay to see that in live action

"sir, we're shipping you six quarts of flocculant. I want you to dump it all in. lets take this offline in chat for follow up pls."

by having directions that don't account for about half the true outcomes, Caribsea has directly caused quite a market need for de-clouding tanks, that's certain.

 

[albano]

I’ve seen that rock formation before! Can’t remember if it’s from Oak Island or Ancient Aliens!



But seriously, is there plumbing in the rock work?

 

[brandon429]

we're also missing all instructions from Caribsea on how to handle/move/relocate their sand during tank home moves. By leaving that undiscussed, I cannot count the $ of animals lost during transfer recycles. Thousands and thousands of dollars of dead animals solely by moving poisonous mud over thinking any sort of cleaning renders bacteria totally dead.

100% rinsing between the old and new homes stops recycle loss 100% of the time. =case getting built for them making updated instructions!

 

[Be102]

I have a thread somewhere I beieve about rinsining mine. I would rinse all sand going forward now. @brandon429 is very knowledgable and I would follow his advice! I did and have had amazing success.

 

[WVNed]

It's a tube for an eel built into the aquascape.

Looks like this now at 2 months

Nope I dont rinse.

4 days

30 days

 

[Kyl]

Dude I regretted it so much when I just dumped a bag in, I was so mad lol, until i sucked it all out and rinsed it about 60 times until it was crystal clear the problem didnt go away

I had that caked on sludge on EVERYTHING within minutes, I was in shock at how bad it was as I didn't remember having the same degree of issue with my fusion 10/20 when adding sand.

 

[Dragon52]

I never rinse , put about 3-4" of water add the sand then the packs that are included with the sand then finish adding water. 2 days later all clear.

 

[dsh92056]

Ive used carib sea live sand on at least half a dozen occasions and have Never rinsed it. They add a small bag of clarifier. It usually only stays cloudy for 24 hours.

 

[MTBake]

I'm starting to wish I added a poll to this, lol.

I will admit, I have never rinsed sand before. Always just added it, then added the saltwater. However, this new setup is too large for me to premix the water with salt. So, I filled the system with ro/di and am now adding salt. I will have to add the sand eventually.

Thinking of doing a little comparison between the 'live' sands. Taking equal amounts (thinking 5 cups) of the Caribsea and Tropic Eden and rinsing them in 3, perhaps 4 stages. I'm very curious to see if one comes out cleaner than the other. Just looking at the bags, the Tropic Eden looks much cleaner. It was also $33 for a 20lb bag versus $20 for the Caribsea. I'll add pics to this thread tomorrow if everything goes right with the new system I just started adding salt to

 

[bjc451]

The way I look at it. You will add bacteria anyway and will make it live. So why not just rinse it. Now is the time to not have any regrets