Newb question

[Creggers]

Hello all! In the process of setting up my second saltwater tank and I ended up picking up a bunch of caribsea argonite sand from Petco as they were blowing it out for $5 per 10 gallon bag. I'm going to add in about 20 lbs of the live sand after I get my tank filled and salt mixed, but I had a simple dumb question that I wanted to confirm prior to starting to mix my saltwater.

I've rinsed my sand, rocks, and test filled my aquarium with basic tap water. I've run all the pumps and protein skimmer to make sure everythings working properly.

Just got done rinsing and adding my sand, but there was probably about half a gallon of non-rodi water left that I couldn't strain out that got dumped into my tank.

I assume due to my large system volume, approximately 80 gallons, 1 gallonish of 'bad' water wouldn't ruin anything... Right? Or should I wait until the tank completely dries before adding any saltwater?

Thanks!

 

[MastaMind82]

I was kinda in the same boat as you with not being able to get 100% of the water out, I just added a bit of water conditioner to the little bit that was left and then filled er up.

 

[ichthyogeek]

Well, if you're waiting for the sand to dry, then all of the "bad chemicals" that you're thinking about are just going to stay there. Water and halogens evaporate. Everything else stays.

If you're truly worried, you can just add RODI water to the tank, mix the sand thoroughly, and drain as much as possible. Then do it again. That should take away upwards of 75% of the "bad water." You can help facilitate this by making a depression in the sand for you to continue to siphon water out after the water goes below the sand level. You can also use poly-filter + cuprisorb if you're incredibly paranoid as well.

 

[Creggers]

I opted to add RODI to display. Taking readings as it fills up. Hopefully TDS gets down below 5PPM or I’ll be pumping & dumping it...

 

[Creggers]

After dumping about a half fill because I was showing around 40 TDS, I dumped and refilled now sitting at around 20. Thinking at full I'll be around 10 or so..

Anyone see a glaring issue with not reducing it further?

 

[PTXReef]

After dumping about a half fill because I was showing around 40 TDS, I dumped and refilled now sitting at around 20. Thinking at full I'll be around 10 or so..

Anyone see a glaring issue with not reducing it further?

I think you're fine. Maybe it's some leftover TDS from the live sand rinse (w/e is left shouldn't have a noticeable negative impact). I usually do not rinse my live sand to leave the beneficial bacteria there.

 

[dbowman5]

Hello all! In the process of setting up my second saltwater tank and I ended up picking up a bunch of caribsea argonite sand from Petco as they were blowing it out for $5 per 10 gallon bag. I'm going to add in about 20 lbs of the live sand after I get my tank filled and salt mixed, but I had a simple dumb question that I wanted to confirm prior to starting to mix my saltwater.

I've rinsed my sand, rocks, and test filled my aquarium with basic tap water. I've run all the pumps and protein skimmer to make sure everythings working properly.

Just got done rinsing and adding my sand, but there was probably about half a gallon of non-rodi water left that I couldn't strain out that got dumped into my tank.

I assume due to my large system volume, approximately 80 gallons, 1 gallonish of 'bad' water wouldn't ruin anything... Right? Or should I wait until the tank completely dries before adding any saltwater?

Thanks!

personally i would not worry about the tap water. after a couple of days the chlorine will have off gassed and the small amount of hardness will be lost in the salt that you mix in, same with trace nutrients