How do I recycle sand

[Geodriller]

I am currently remodeling my basement and decided to put my tanks in the wall. I had to take al of my sand out of the display tank to do this. It was about 4-6 inches, spread throughout, depending on where my clown would decide to clean. That tank had been up for a little over three years. I noticed a very foul smell from the sand when I was romoving it and between that and how long I have had the DSB I decided to not put it back in Believing it would send my tank into a cycle and kill my corals. I washed about 5lbs of it with RO water to put it back in the corner for the clam ond plate coral but all the rest is sitting in a tote. I do not want to buy all new sand for the tank so I am going to recycle the sand I have. Has anyone done this that could give me some pointers besides the obvious? Here are a couple questions I have.
1. Should I use hypo or hyper salinity water?
2. How often should I stir the sand?
3. How long should it take for 80lbs. of sand to clean?
4. Is it ready when the skimmer stops producing skimmate?
5. Do I need to heat the water to possibly keep some life?
6. Or can I just rince all the sand very well with tap water then RO water and put it back in the tank little by little?

 

[therealfatman]

If it has only been a few days and the sand has been kept saturated or under water I would l keep out enough for about a half inch layer and rinse it well with mixed salt water and put it in the tank and clean and sanitise the rest. For cleaning use a large wide bowl like a large stainless steel bowl or a large rectangular cake pan or broiler pan and fill it about half full of sand and run fresh water over the sand as you stir it with your hands. Dump it in a container and dio this until you have rinsed all the sand. I would use about a 1/4 cup of chlorox to add to the sand and add enough water to cover the sand. Let it soak over night and rinse well again. It would take to much of the typical chlorine nutralizer to just nutralise the chlorine so rinsing is needed. There should be no reason to use vinegar or acids unless you some time in the past used a medication containing copper. Do not use tap water to rinse any of the sand that you wish to keep alive. Tap water will kill almost everything and the bleach will kill the rest. I would only keep enough sand alive to add a layer of live sanf d on tiop of the dead clean sand. Unless the sand is only a day or so out of the tankbut kept wet. If that is the case rinse it with mixed salt water and use no tap water or bleach. Expect a short cycling to happen and just be greatful if it does not.

 

[Geodriller]

Thank you very much for your help. I will rince enough with saltwater to put .5'' of sand to cover the bottom and save some LS for after I sanitise the rest to cover it. I will sanitise the rest but not sure if I want to go with a DSB again. I started a fuge a couple months ago that holds about 30 gallons of water and has a DSB. It is about 2'' of Fiji pink sand at the bottom and 3'' of Aragonite on top of that as I wanted the denitrification but a pod population was my main concern ( wanted a Mandarin in a year or so). I may just go with the SSB in the DT and move half of the Aragonite in the fuge to one side and put the rest of the sanitised sand in the other side of the fuge. Is there a certian point of overkill when it comes to a DSB? If I put all the rest of the sand in the fuge it will probably put me aroud 6''-8'' of sand. Is that too much? I was planing on puting some sort of colorfull nonreef-safe fish in the fuge but that will probably not leave enough room if I put all that sand in there. I guess I gould just go with a Mantis Shrimp. Always wanted one of those. Anywho back to the sand. Your saying what I want to sanitise is to rince with tapwater, then soak in water and "BLEACH???" overnight, then rince with RO water and Prime a few times, and it should be good to add back to the tank all at once with minimal impact? The sand as of 1-29-09 noonish or so Central time, has been sitting in my basement wich in these cold winters sits around 60 degrees. Is it still safe to rince and add to tank (the little amount for the half inch in the DT)? BTW the sand has been sitting in saltwater the whole time. Again thank you for your help.

 

[therealfatman]

I use 10" deep sand in remote deep sand buckets and they work fine.

Unless you have very bad tap water the final rinsing of your sand after bleach can be tap water rather than expensive RODI water. The low tempearture will not have killed the beneficial bacteria as long as the tempeartures are above freezing. I do not know how many would actually surviv frezing. The lowered temperatures slow their multiplication as well as lengthening their life cycles. With lowered tempeartures they have lowered needs for oxygen and food.

 

[Agu]

I've recycled sand several times.

I use the waste water from my ro/di to rinse as much crud as possible out of the sand. Smaller batches work best and this can take a while but it allows me to recycle the "waste" water. Ordinary tap water works fine.

After rinsing I thoroughly dry the sand and that's important imo. Once it's completely dry is can be stored until it's needed.

Before reusing the sand I do a final rinse/soak in RO/DI water. You'll be surprised at how much dry crud will rise out of the "clean" sand in that final rinse.

 

[ozzmosis]

I know aquarists that have rinsed their sand with tap water with no problems at all. I am getting ready to do the same and then do a final rinse with R/O water before I add it back to the tank. I do like the idea of leaving a small layer of the old live sand though.