Do I have to rinse my sand with RO/DI?

[ahud]

I bought some Carib sea special grade reef sand and the package says to rinse. Do I have to use RO/DI water to do this?

 

[jalloway502]

It would probably be ideal if you rinsed it with ro/di, but frankly, I've always just used the hose and tried to drain as much water off as I could.

 

[ali1]

I wouldn't even rinse it. I just let my sand in the tank and let the skimmer do all the work.

 

[scubasteve06]

As both others have said, RO/DI isn't necessary and neither is rinsing it all together. Make sure you skimmer is up to it, and if you have filter socks or any sort of pre filter be sure it gets rinsed out once the tank clears up. The fine particles of sand can clog up the socks or prefilters.

 

[Toddrtrex]

Tap worked great for me.

 

[Sk8r]

Best to rinse it with ro/di. If you don't, you can end up with brown water and a soupy mess. Plus algae is fueled by phosphate that comes in via sand and live rock, so you might as well get rid of all the fine particulate you can, which dissolves easily.

 

[ali1]

Just dump the sand in the tank, attach socks to your drain pipes to catch most of the crap. Then remove or rinse socks after the tank starts clearing up. Once you put the sand in the tank, it will be super cloudy for a few days.

 

[borderjo]

I have always rinsed, but hose/tap water is fine - just drain it pretty well. The tiny amount of trace impurities remaining won't have any impact.

 

[aleonn]

I rinse with tap water to get rid of lots of dust. Otherwise the display tank will be more cloudy than it would have been.

 

[Microcosmos]

I'm going to jump on the "just dump it in" train and ride it. I would not ever put tap water anywhere near my tank! Just my 2 cents. Then as mentioned just filter the dust out. If rinsing makes you more comfortable, I would suggest taking the time to use RO/DI, just to do all you can to avoid those pesky trace elements.

 

[revstu]

I used the same sand in my 220 fowlr and my reef and if you choose not to rinse it their will be a lot of junk that will end up in your tank. It won't cause any serious problems but it will cloud your tank for a while. I used a empty salt bucket, filled it half full of sand and rinsed it with the garden hose in the front yard. After I rinsed for a while I tilted the bucket forward and got as much tap water out of the bucket as I could. Then dumped it in my tank. The small amount of tap water that goes into your tank is not a problem.

 

[brycerb]

X2 on 5gallon bucket/garden hose

 

[Knox_Legend]

I have used the hose and bucket method with out any problems and just dumped in the tank and filled it up. I hate waiting for the cloudy look to go away and it has lasted much longer with the dump in the tank method than if I was to spend 10 minutes rinsing it with the hose.

 

[Uncle Salty 05]

Rinse well with tap water and de-chlorinate the final rinse. Pour off as much water as possible, then add to tank.
If the sand says on the bag to rinse it and you don't. you will regret it.
I have seen all kinds of contaminates come out of bagged sand, everything from bugs to sticks etc.

 

[isildursbane]

From the Newbie Info Pages:
http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1696795
http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2008-05/newbie/index.php

"At this point we need to talk a little about getting a new sandbed started. The best, and fastest, method is to just buy enough live sand to get a four inch bed. When using this method I do suggest that you purchase sand from several suppliers. This provides better diversity in sand organisms than getting it all from a single source. When starting with new live sand there is really not a curing period involved. I merely dump the sand into a five-gallon bucket of saltwater. I do not mix it, but I decant off the water in the bucket before emptying it into the main tank. This step will flush out light dead organisms from the new sand. Do not vigorously stir the sand and never, ever place it in a fine strainer to rinse it. That will remove sand and valuable organisms from that sand that costs good money to obtain."

 

[davocean]

I've heard many claim that the fine particles have beneficial anerobic qualities, and to not rinse.
I would maybe do a quick pass to remove some of the crud that probably fell into it.
I've always read that phosphates can bind to the sand, so I personally would use RO/DI for that reason.

 

[lordofthereef]

IME no matter how much you rinse, it's never enough (in terms of reducing the super fine particles that want to stay in suspension forever and then some). I good option is to start with tap, once the water gets less cloudy (this is potentially undetectable LOL), you can hit it with a couple gallons of RO, just so you aren't being QUITE so wasteful