Question about reusing sand

[Fanof49ASU]

OK, I had 60-80# of sand in a rubbermaid tub with a heater/filter/powerhead keeping it alive.

Everything was going nicely, until my powerstrip somehow was knocked into that tub. Yeah, I had all the sights, sounds and smells of a real electrical fire. I unplugged it, and the tub sat idle for a couple of weeks.....due to frustration.

My question.
Can I just wash this sand with fresh water, and continue (as planned) to use it in my new tank?
I would imagine that I nuked every living thing in the water/sand, so it should be fairly clean anyways.....right?

 

[Angela Short]

I washed some old sand like you are saying very, very, very good and used it in my 80. I was very sold on "having" to have the white coral sand and couldn't afford new so thought how could anything be wrong with it since it was washed in small amounts till the water ran clean and clear as glass. I mean this sand was pristine clean but I always had a lot of alage on the glass in that tank. I used all new playsand in the 270 and just a few small kinda washed in saltwater scoops of old sand to seed it with the spagetti worms and all from the 80. I hardly ever had to clean the glass in the 270 so I dunno. It was a bigger tank but I had a way,way heavier bioload and fed a ton of food. I did notice frozen food, even if rinsed well, still gave me more alage on the glass than flake/pellets in both tanks but thats a different thread.

I have never dealt with any true alage problems in either tank but just have the amount of film that was awful in the 80 with the used washed sand as a guage to tell me it did seem to have an adverse effect on the system. I also ran a huge skimmer on the 80 all the time and ran a small skimmer on the 270 50% of the time....I was told that P04 attatches to the actual grain of sand chemically kinda like old rock gets bogged down with it and it will give you trouble in the long run but I only have my own experience with it and it did seem to give me trouble. But there could have been a million things in the 80 off that the 270 was right in that caused the constant high phoshates I delt with in the 80 so take all that I said with "A GRAIN OF SAND" :lol:

FWIW I threw all my old sand full of neat critters in the creek and have all new from the LFS for the new tank. I figure why take a chance for trouble over a few good worms and the price of a bag of sand (or 5) to maybe have head achs in the future. But I am being stupid cautiouse this go!

I picked mine up at Emerald bay at the meeting with the nice discount and I think we have A LFS meeting this month so its a good time for drygood purchases!

 

[Angela Short]

:eek2: Man I talk alot even on line!!

 

[waynesworld]

I don't think I would exp after adding the power strip in it not knowing if that contaminated it? Not worth the chance since sand is so cheap.

 

[NeveSSL]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=13493021#post13493021 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by waynesworld
I don't think I would exp after adding the power strip in it not knowing if that contaminated it? Not worth the chance since sand is so cheap.

This is what I was thinking. You may have accidentally electro-coated a few particles of sand and turned them chrome. Or some other such non-sense.

Brandon

 

[Fanof49ASU]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=13493218#post13493218 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by NeveSSL
This is what I was thinking. You may have accidentally electro-coated a few particles of sand and turned them chrome. Or some other such non-sense.

Brandon

That's my concern..... especially since I don't know enough about it. I know most electrical wires contain copper, and didn't know what might take place during an electrical surge like that.

Thanks for the responses.

 

[james3370]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=13492536#post13492536 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Angela Short
:eek2: Man I talk alot even on line!!

i keeed....i keeeed :lol:

 

[Angela Short]

:lol: So you think your funny? Seriously, that was pretty funny!

 

[Mikeyjer]

When I moved my tanks, I took out ALL the sand and washed them real clean by moving small amounts per 1 small bucket so I can make sure they're all rinsed real good with tap water, then I wash them again with saltwater for a couple of times, then I reused them and I haven't had any problem with them at all. I seeded the top part with live sand and just let it be.