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Cultivated Reef

Rinsing sand with tap water


Polarcollision

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Polarcollision

Has anyone rinsed the sugar-fine sand that's notorious for it's milky cloud with tap water? RODI takes so long to make, it could be weeks before the sand is fully rinsed. However I'll do it if anyone ended up crashing their tank or killing sensitive acros with a tap-water rinse followed by a final RODI rinse.

 

I should mention that I'm considering replacing a ~3 year-old sand bed with new sand.

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I'm no expert but did this with mine when I switched tanks.  Rinsed really well with tap, and then once rinsed I rinsed well with fresh salt water.  Ran into no issues.

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Rinsed with tap, no issues. Rinse my filter bags with tap, ect. People get really spooked about a small amount of tap water. Just throw a shot of prime in there and swish before you dump the water out. If anything upsets the corals, it will be because a big change is about to happen. Be sure not to stir up the old sand bed.

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1 minute ago, 1891Bro said:

Yup. Just do the last rinse with nice water and you be good. 

What do you mean by "nice" here?  Serious question.  I'm getting my new substrate tomorrow!

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7 minutes ago, 1891Bro said:

Rodi or distilled. 

So when the substrate finally runs clear with tap water, then throw in distilled/RODI and do one final rinse/drain?

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9 minutes ago, cju84 said:

So when the substrate finally runs clear with tap water, then throw in distilled/RODI and do one final rinse/drain?

Yup. If it was me, and it was me at one point, just rinse all the silt out give one last clean water rinse and go. 

 

Edit it to add: I actually just rinsed with tap on this last tank. Didn't even do a clean water rinse. 

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6 minutes ago, 1891Bro said:

Yup. If it was me, and it was me at one point, just rinse all the silt out give one last clean water rinse and go. 

 

Edit it to add: I actually just rinsed with tap on this last tank. Didn't even do a clean water rinse. 

Thanks much.  I was planning on just doing tap water until it ran clean.  I don't mind rinsing with distilled if it actually helps.  Just figured the tap would still overwhelmingly be in the substrate even with a clean water rinse.

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Polarcollision

When you rinsed your sand with tap water, was it a brand new tank?

 

i have a really nice Oregon tort colony and a banana lokani that would make me cry if I kill them with tap residue...

 

If anyone's pulled it off with acros on the line, please let me know!!

2 hours ago, cju84 said:

Thanks much.  I was planning on just doing tap water until it ran clean.  I don't mind rinsing with distilled if it actually helps.  Just figured the tap would still overwhelmingly be in the substrate even with a clean water rinse.

My exact concern. Wary of killing acros...

8 hours ago, Tautoo said:

I'm no expert but did this with mine when I switched tanks.  Rinsed really well with tap, and then once rinsed I rinsed well with fresh salt water.  Ran into no issues.

What type of coral did you keep at the time?

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Polarcollision
3 hours ago, Tamberav said:

Rinsed with tap, no issues. Rinse my filter bags with tap, ect. People get really spooked about a small amount of tap water. Just throw a shot of prime in there and swish before you dump the water out. If anything upsets the corals, it will be because a big change is about to happen. Be sure not to stir up the old sand bed.

Thinking about chlorine and copper. Any experience here? When I run tap to clear the pipes, the chlorine scent is quite strong. We used to leave water in buckets over night as a kid, but again, that would take FOREVER to clear out the silt.

Thanks for the food for thought everyone, keep it coming.

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Prime is a life saver. I am not saying fill your tank with tap though. Just I personally don't hesitate to rinse things in tap. You can find threads of people taking sand outside and using the garden hose on it. Shrug. 

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  • 3 weeks later...

Most ppl rinse the sand in tap when setting up, moving/replacing sand, or tank transfer.

 

You can do your final rinse eith adding prime if it's that much of a concern.

 

I rinse all my media in tap water all the time. Never had an issue

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