revhtree
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Welcome to your new home for saltwater reef aquarium resources and fun! Welcome to the family! 
shakacuz
hang loose, cuz
welcome aboard the r2r board. hello from PA!
rinsing LIVE sand is unnecessary, although you may find that some members have done so to "mitigate" water cloudiness when adding water. the live sand bags usually come with water clarifying packets anyways. if the sand is "dry" or not live, you can rinse to clear out any powder or debris. the reason i said unnecessary for live sand is because you wouldn't want to wash away or rinse out the beneficial bacteria that could still be live in the bag
rinsing LIVE sand is unnecessary, although you may find that some members have done so to "mitigate" water cloudiness when adding water. the live sand bags usually come with water clarifying packets anyways. if the sand is "dry" or not live, you can rinse to clear out any powder or debris. the reason i said unnecessary for live sand is because you wouldn't want to wash away or rinse out the beneficial bacteria that could still be live in the bag
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I don’t rinse it, but it may get cloudy for a few days or so. Some people put a bag over the top of the sand to absorb the splashing from filling the tank, then remove it. Welcome!
Dread Pirate Dave
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Welcome aboard! 
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Mr Fishface
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Welcome! Like said before, not totally necessary but it has a nice benefit of not making water nearly as cloudy. When I bought live sand from Tampa Bay saltwater I did not rinse though.
RV Reefs
Active Member
Hi, and welcome to R2R! Feel free to ask any other questions you may have! Personally, I don’t rinse my live sand, I don’t care about the water cloudiness because it will clear up in the long period of time for cycling the tank!
GatorGreg
Well-Known Member
My 22 gallon I rinsed the Live Fiji pink for around 3 hours. It was brutal……I was scared by all the reading I did. It was one bag. I rinsed and rinsed and rinsed some more. Then when the water ran crystal clear and I was done I rinsed it in saltwater.
For my new set up I couldn’t even bare the thought of rinsing with DOUBLE the amount of sand. By my calcs of 3 hours for the one bag to run clear. I was thinking 5 to 6 for the 2 bags. There was no way. I rolled the dice and I’m glad I did.
I will admit I was nervous I made a mistake after setting up. It looked like milk…..I poured the water in recklessly on purpose to stir the sand up and purposely stirred the sand. I always keep on hand 10 micron filter pad. So I turned up the power heads and pumps and changed out the filter floss every 5 to 6 hours throughout last weekend. Today my water is crystal clear and I can stir my sand and it’s not clouding up. I’ll never put that much labor into rinsing again I don’t think. Tomorrow my rock goes in.
For my new set up I couldn’t even bare the thought of rinsing with DOUBLE the amount of sand. By my calcs of 3 hours for the one bag to run clear. I was thinking 5 to 6 for the 2 bags. There was no way. I rolled the dice and I’m glad I did.
I will admit I was nervous I made a mistake after setting up. It looked like milk…..I poured the water in recklessly on purpose to stir the sand up and purposely stirred the sand. I always keep on hand 10 micron filter pad. So I turned up the power heads and pumps and changed out the filter floss every 5 to 6 hours throughout last weekend. Today my water is crystal clear and I can stir my sand and it’s not clouding up. I’ll never put that much labor into rinsing again I don’t think. Tomorrow my rock goes in.
OP
OP
KrAt0s
Community Member
Good to know. I also read through most of the content here. 3 hours? Yeah that’s rough, but still sounds like something I would do just to make things more difficult, ha.My 22 gallon I rinsed the Live Fiji pink for around 3 hours. It was brutal……I was scared by all the reading I did. It was one bag. I rinsed and rinsed and rinsed some more. Then when the water ran crystal clear and I was done I rinsed it in saltwater.
For my new set up I couldn’t even bare the thought of rinsing with DOUBLE the amount of sand. By my calcs of 3 hours for the one bag to run clear. I was thinking 5 to 6 for the 2 bags. There was no way. I rolled the dice and I’m glad I did.
I will admit I was nervous I made a mistake after setting up. It looked like milk…..I poured the water in recklessly on purpose to stir the sand up and purposely stirred the sand. I always keep on hand 10 micron filter pad. So I turned up the power heads and pumps and changed out the filter floss every 5 to 6 hours throughout last weekend. Today my water is crystal clear and I can stir my sand and it’s not clouding up. I’ll never put that much labor into rinsing again I don’t think. Tomorrow my rock goes in.
This is the thread that I was most interested in, as it seems to point to a more long term impact on not rinsing the sand. Is this what also had you rinsing sand for 3 hours?
Thread 'Official Sand Rinse and Tank Transfer thread'
https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/official-sand-rinse-and-tank-transfer-thread.230281/
VintageReefer
10K Club member
I’m not re-reading that thread but I think that’s about rinsing sand to fix tank issues, usually referred to as old tank syndrome, or rinsing used sand to move from one tank or another
The issue with used old sand is that it traps detritus, and there are biological processes under the sand that create toxic gases, that are normally trapped. And vent out very very very slowly. When you shovel up old sand and stir it up you release them all at once and it can affect corals and fish.
New live sand is dusty and will cloud up a tank but I feel it’s harmless and gets settled/filtered in a few days.
I’ve never rinsed new sand for new tanks. I just have the tank with sand and water only and leave the filtration running. Every few days I’ll give it a good stir
After a week or two I’ll add the rock
