Reusing old sand - Definitively Yes

[MikeTR]

Had the privledge of listening to a presentation made by Kevin Kohen over the weekend. For those of you who don't know who he is.. he launched Liveaquaria.com and oversees the operations of Drs. Foster & Smith Aquaculture Coral & Marine Life Facility. Nice presentation on infrequently harvested marine fish, and why they're so expensive.. (a $1000 fish is a bargain considering it was likely harvested on the other side of the world, either by extremely experienced deepwater divers or via submarine from depths of 300-500 feet on an expidition to a remote island and shipped thousands of miles to end up in your house..) anywho.. during the presentation on the wrasse species, since they like to sleep in the sand, we got to find out how they disinfect their sand in between shipments of new fish to ensure parasites/bacteria are killed. Good news for me because I have 3 buckets of some nasty sand sitting in the garage growing gunk on top of it that I was just going to throw out and buy new.

 

What's needed.

Bleach

Sodium Thiosulfate (available as chlorine neutralizer at a pool supply store, or for smaller batches, just use water conditioner)

 

Recipe:

1/4 cup bleach per gallon of water. Mix up the sand with solution and let soak for a couple hours. Rinse with tap water (yes he did say tap water). Then let soak in solution of sodium thiosulfate for a few more hours to remove the chlorine, and then rinse again with tap water. I'm going to do a final rinse in RO water as it'll be going straight into the aquarium after this along with a new bag of live sand to seed it.

[Red Sea Reefer]

Interesting, how much sodium thiosulfate? Thanks for sharing.

[bizzarro]

I'm sure it's probably not necessary for chemicals if you clean it in small batches. Maybe chlorine levels in the tap is enough to not add additional chemicals.

[MikeTR]

I was pretty surprised myself. He didn't specify how much to use so you'll have to follow instructions. For the typical aquarist, the water conditioners should do the trick. Aqueon water conditioner at petco has the following ingredients: Disodium EDTA, sodium thiosulfate, polyvinylpyrrolidone. Says add 5 ml (1 tsp) per 10 gallons of water. I'm sure since they have a large aquaculture facility they are mixing up larger batches for regular disinfection, hence the need for bulk quantity.

 

I rescind my last statement about doing a "final rinse in RO since this is going in a new tank." After reading: http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2003-11/rhf/feature/index.php it appears that activated carbon will break down chloramines into ammonia, chloride, and nitrogen gas. So any residual chloramines that are left after the final rinse may actually help to jump start my cycle by adding a bit of ammonia.

[Red Sea Reefer]

Why take chances when you are dealing with thousands of dollars in fish. I don't think tap will kill parasites but they will fish.

[MikeTR]

Well their quarantine tanks are bare bottom, they just use a small container filled with sand so the wrasses can bury themselves. After the fish is removed from quarantine, they clean the sand.

 

I do remember Kevin saying that you should be able to smell the chlorine so if that's the case then you can use more of the neutralizer.

[Lawnman]

Nice Mike thanks for sharing. It is crazy the amount of sand aquarist throw away each year.

[MikeTR]

So I went ahead and followed these instructions. I didn't do the final rinse in RO. Been 3 weeks since the tank was started and so far no cycle. Sand is definitely looking nice.