How to clean new aquariumsand the easy way.

[FunWithFish101]

How does that work?

[varadigabor]

This works really, thanks a lot!

I was already washing the sand in a bucket when I saw the video, so had to push the mud into the bottle. Also my aquarium is not that big that I could submerge the bottle totally, so had to fill it, plug, and turn and then into the water - good news: works like that as well.

Thanks!

[PurpleSpades]

uhm, you just scoop sand in a cup or bucket and place it in the tank upright until water flows in..then lower the cup and tilt it near the bottom..

[YouPoorTing]

Thanks for the info.... never did use sand for my tank. I used a slurpee cup instead of a soda bottle(took to long to put sand into bottle). Cleaned 25lbs of sand in a half hour.

[petrochemicals4u]

Can you come and do my 8x2x2...."the easy way"

[fir3ice1]

what type of sand is that?

[araleas]

AWESOME THANKS!!!!!!

[wiinzyngaazking]

whats going on there ,, i un get it

[nasertaqi1]

wow



[spongeex]

Can yo udo this white gravel two ?

[effini333]

I really wish I knew about this method before I tried to rinse my Flourite sand in a large bucket. It would have saved me a lot of trouble and cloudiness in the water

[FullAlumiinumJacket]

Nice! I think i would have used a two litre bottle though....

[xero18999]

OMG you bast@#%, I have been shitting bricks because I was trying to figure out how to clean my sand from Home depot easy. I rinsed it in a bucket outside still got nice cloudy water. You took the stress out of it all. I thank you good sir. I shall show this to my friends. First time I have had fish I really only keep scorpions and such. Thanks.

[Ricine]

You're going to need a funnel to pour the sand into your bottle. I used a water bottle and cut the bottom off of it to use as a funnel into a larger container ( a well rinsed out 1 gallon milk jug)

[Ricine]

That is so cool!! I was dreading washing the sand and then putting it in my already established tank but this looks like it could be fun

[Ricardoclimaco]

Very good!

What's left inside the bottle is the dirt of sand?

[jettamk5]

This should be called how to fill an aquarium with sand, not clean. I use play sand and have to "clean" it before doing this. Either way this helped me a lot and was a great idea.

Thanks.

[meiguonan1029]

THANK YOU! THIS WAS SOOO HELPFUL!

I just used it on adding some beautiful local white sand to my aquarium and my water stayed CRYSTAL CLEAR! this is a great tip!

again thank you soo much!

[PetaPanPipes]

Cool trick! I'll remember this if I ever add sand to a tank!

I wonder, does it work on small and medium sized gravel too? Or is it the compacting of the sand what makes it work so well?

[ironsausage66]

gravel vac would be much faster and easier. plus you could do a decent size water change.

[PetaPanPipes]

@ironsausage66 I don't think you understand what this video is about mate! (How to clean "new" aquariumsand the easy way.) It's not about doing water changes and gravel vacs, fyi.

[raedeon]

@ironsausage66 This is for adding new sand, not cleaning existing sand. How are you going to use a vacuum to add new sand?

[ironsausage66]

@raedeon Thank you for the timely reminder. Just the other day I was thinking to myself how nice it would be if, every time I misinterpreted something, someone would come along 3 months later and reminded me of my mistake. Being single, I have no one on hand to provide this service for me. Thankfully, through the wonders of the internet, you have come along and kindly rubbed my nose in my error. Are you single? If not, perhaps we could get married and you could do this for me on a daily basis.

[razzamanaz79]

infuriatingly slow

[Headhighswell]

How do you get the sand into the bottle?

[hotlips4000isback2]

@Headhighswell

A kitchen funnel!

[skajaquada78]

Put your sand in a 5 gallon bucket and grab the garden hose and fill the bucket with water. With the water running, take your hand and churn the sand over and over again until the water that is over flowing is clear. Rinse and repeat. Takes like 5 mins per 50lbs of sand

[plecotv]

guys don't try this with play sand

[xjennysmithx]

Great idea but I have two greta bags of the stuff to put in my new tank....will be on all month hahaha

[crf50hugo]

That's slick

[cheesepuff87]

Oh wow, so simple.

Is this an adequate way to clean sand in general? No prewashing needed?

[Bazil1869]

how long did you leave that in there

[endymion250]

@Bazil1869 A few minutes so that the air disapears

[Bazil1869]

@endymion250 i got silica sand in my tank now check it out

[JKDspirit]

¬_¬ surely there is a quicker easier way then to put sand in a bottle and leave it there ¬_¬

[endymion250]

@JKDspirit Of course there is quicker ways but then you will have a cloudy aquarium.

[JKDspirit]

@endymion250 no way hehe, in the LFS the guy showed me a siphon...a realy huuuge siphon...for very cheap price. he says it will suck the sand up to about half way and then when it gets too high the sand will just fall back down again...so i will try this when i get my huge aquarium soon...if it doesnt..i will try ur bottle method hehehe

[Superthecod]

@endymion250 u think so i just put mine in there barly any cloudyness

[kevinwcmi]

WARNING! My post is technical and will bore most people. First, to the poster - this is frigging brilliant! I am an engineer who works in the solids/liquids separation business. What you have produced here is a very simple device employing what is called the "hindered settling" principle. Sand is a mixture of many particle sizes. The "cloud" left in water is the result of suspended fine particles. In your device these fine particles sink slower and are left behind in the bottle. Very ingenious.

[iPhonestunna]

Okay so how do u get the sand in the bottle?

[endymion250]

@iPhonestunna I used a funnel

[sailorminimoon1000]

Beautiful.

[alstrizzy]

now what happens if you already have pre existing sand in your aquarium, can you still apply this method, and if so, it will be such a headache no,moving the rocks and whatever else is in the way? i am looking for a easy way instead of syphoning the sand, when i do that i usually pick up a good amount of sand which i dont like to do, lemme know if you have any suggestions..thanks

[iownudie108]

even though i think this technique is great , i dont recomend sand,it grows alge soo fast and forms airpockets especially in warm-water tanks...

[34kevin34]

YOU ARE BRILLIANT ! NOW I CAN DISPENSE SAND WITHOUT THE LITTLE PARTICLES GOING EVERYWHERE :D WELL AT LEAST THATS WHAT I THINK YOUR DOING ;)

[KEEPitSTUPID]

this isnt cleaning, it is just dispensing

[hookincatfish1]

@KEEPitSTUPID do u see the dirty water left

[Loren400]

Very good idea. :) Just time consuming for a larger tank.

[iron2474]

mute yet the idea was loud and clear

[TeRroRSqUaD20]

great!!! idea!! nice one

[mtrevizo1000]

Damn!! If i would have seen this video 2 days earlier i wouldn't have had a muddy fish tank! I went and bought a 50lb bag of play sand and cleaned it for about an hour and a half, put it in my 55gal tank (carefully) which was half full of water. It still mudied it up pretty bad i was so pissed off. Had to basically keep washing it in my fish tank.

[riderinblack57]

@mtrevizo1000 unless the sand you bought is argonite i mean if its something else it has alot of chemicals in it so becareful

[dennishuynh1]

do you have to rinse the sand first before doing this?

[cosbyfish]

can riverbed sand work for this or do you have to get special sand for this?

[UmakeMeSYK]

ITS for cleaning the sand in the bottle so when u dump it all in it doesnt fog up and stay in the water get it it sinks coz it gets wet first

[suicide5389]

how does it work the bottle just majically just fills up with sand and u pour it out?

[LethalResistanz]

What?

You use a funnel fill it then put it in the tank and let the air pockets get out.

[nosyiam]

Is it cheaper to use sand over gravel or the other way around?

[LethalResistanz]

50lb bag of sand is 5 bucks. I think i spend like 30 for gravel.

[damafiafz]

hmm ur mind is creative vry cool idea

[Boneyman]

Brilliant!

[klopper2170]

dam i went and brought a fish tank vacuum and then i saw this vid

[endymion250]

This video is only to show how it work. Size it up with 5 liter bottle, and it will go faster.

[highlanderdurp]

@endymion250 wont all the dust go into the water of the tank if you clean it in the aquarium?

[endymion250]

@highlanderdurp As you can see .... no

[highlanderdurp]

@endymion250 dont get smart with me kiddo.

[Yakuzagang5]

@highlanderdurp Then use common sense and watch the video lol

[Murakisdoll]

this takes forever....but danggg are u smart O.O

[mephys337]

I'm guessing this could work with a 2L bottler as well for a bigger amount of sand.

[aurrasinger]

This is intriguing.... hmmm.

[wintermire]

Dang!! No more rinsing, rinsing, rinsing, and more rinsing in a bucket.

[strawberryshort99]

@wintermire, (RE: How to clean new aquarium sand the easy way).

Although it does work to remove most of the dust/dirt/particles from sand, very efficiently and effectively might I add, it is not perfect.

If you only do this one time, after the sand settles and you stir it up to test how effectively it truly is, the water will still be sort of cloudy. I would still rinse the sand a couple/few times either before or after this. Or you could simply do this "bottle method" several times.

[endymion250]

@strawberryshort99

Its enough to this only one time

[strawberryshort99]

@endymion250, I appreciate your video very much. After watching this video, I had to employ this method multiple times before the sand was completely clean and nearly free of dust.

I will even say this is probably the most effective method I have ever seen and used, however, I recently used this on two types of sand: (1) Play Sand and (2) Lapis Lustre Monterey Beach Sand.

If I only do this one time on both sand types AND if I stir up the sand, the water will still get "a little bit" cloudy.

[strawberryshort99]

@endymion250, However, I will still say this is a 5/5 star method.

As noted, from experience, doing this one time will essentially remove 95% of the impurities. Doing it a few more times will improve the effectiveness to 98% (depending on the sand type).

[strawberryshort99]

@endymion250, On the other hand, this is the BEST method to introduce sand substrate into your aquarium already filled with water.

Fortunately, if you don't stir it up when the sand is already introduced into the aquarium utilizing this method, the water will remain clear regardless if you do it once OR multiple times.

[laceyqueso98]

awesome!

[vanhalenman60]

if you think its hard to think up of this but how it works is common logic

[mayshaybaby]

What did you do?

[acidpope1]

Looks to me like you simply fill a bottle with the sand you're using and lower it into the tank. The air in the sand escapes through the top of the bottle as the water rushing in replaces it. The just turn the bottle, which is now filled with only sand and water, upside down and let gravity do its work. The sand falls out and the water replacing it in the bottle filters out the dust as it rushes in to the upper portion of the bottle. Quite ingenius. Thanks for the video.

[CrunchieDan]

Without this explanation I wouldn't have known how this is so much better or how it worked. Thanks for that.

[hydralisk3313]

@acidpope1 Yes.