Cooking sand

[Aquavaj]

Never realized how much moisture sand can hold until now. Been trying to dry the 40lb of sand by cooking them in an aluminum tray over the stove. I have the sand sitting around for a week since the rinse and it's still damp. Not wanting to wait any longer I resorted to this method. So far it's taking about 20-25 mins per tray. What's crazy is even with the sand too hot to hold for long than a second the sand is still damp and sticks to my skin. Completely dry sand will not and fall off.

I don't know. The amount of work to prep dry sand isn't worth saving a few bucks from the live sand. I've always used the live stuff and never rinsed and it'll be near crystal clear the next morning. I rinsed the heck out of this bag and dumped what I dried last night and it's still slightly cloudy as I type this.

 

[Cell]

Why do you need it dry?

 

[exnisstech]

Deleted

 

[Aquavaj]

Why do you need it dry?

Guess I'm just a little paranoid but I used tap water to rinse and just feel a lot better knowing the sand is dry. I've rinse plenty of things with tap water before but always let it dry out completely if it's going in the tank.

 

[mues]

Guess I'm just a little paranoid but I used tap water to rinse and just feel a lot better knowing the sand is dry. I've rinse plenty of things with tap water before but always let it dry out completely if it's going in the tank.

The worry with tap water is the chlorine and metals in the water.... so by cooking/evaporating the water..... you're still leaving those behind. I wouldn't think so far into it.

 

[KK's Reef]

Guess I'm just a little paranoid but I used tap water to rinse and just feel a lot better knowing the sand is dry. I've rinse plenty of things with tap water before but always let it dry out completely if it's going in the tank.

Just do your final rinse with RODI.

 

[Cell]

Yep, final rinse with RODI. Otherwise, I wouldn't really worry about that little amount of residual tap water. It's going to get massively diluted.

 

[WheatToast]

Never realized how much moisture sand can hold until now. Been trying to dry the 40lb of sand by cooking them in an aluminum tray over the stove. I have the sand sitting around for a week since the rinse and it's still damp. Not wanting to wait any longer I resorted to this method. So far it's taking about 20-25 mins per tray. What's crazy is even with the sand too hot to hold for long than a second the sand is still damp and sticks to my skin. Completely dry sand will not and fall off.

I don't know. The amount of work to prep dry sand isn't worth saving a few bucks from the live sand. I've always used the live stuff and never rinsed and it'll be near crystal clear the next morning. I rinsed the heck out of this bag and dumped what I dried last night and it's still slightly cloudy as I type this.

Guess I'm just a little paranoid but I used tap water to rinse and just feel a lot better knowing the sand is dry. I've rinse plenty of things with tap water before but always let it dry out completely if it's going in the tank.

The worry with tap water is the chlorine and metals in the water.... so by cooking/evaporating the water..... you're still leaving those behind. I wouldn't think so far into it.

The water and chlorine will evaporate, but the heavy metals will stick around. Additionally, I would be worried about having left the sand in contact with the aluminum of the trays, but I would just resolve this buy rinsing with RODI, as @Cell and @KK's Reef mentioned.