So I've done tones of reading on this topic as yesterday I did the switch from gravel to
sand.
I must have read every topic in this and other forums on the best easiest method to do the swap.
Now having done 3 aquariums with 2 different brands of sand, I have a concrete answer on which one is best...
It depends on the bag of sand you have. Yeah sorry, not a concrete of an answer as I had hoped for.
With the Pool Filter Sand, it needed a decent amount of rinsing.
Doing the bucket method, it took 5 fill, sit, drain before the water was somewhat clear.
Testing the bottle method made water in the 5 gallon cloudy a little bit on one try. Multiply by 10-20 bottles, could be bad but not too severe.
Tested the pillow case method, seems to work "ok", I would recommend it but it wasn't really pleasant. Really had wet feet, bigger mess, but it did work in cleaning the sand.
Now that being said, I tried the same 3 methods with
Carib Sea Super Naturals
The bucket method took only 1 rinse with 1/3 of bag #1. Bag #2 took 3 rinses!
To try the bottle method I did it right in my 30 gallon as there was next to nothing in 1/3 of the sand in a bucket method that I tested. Did the rest of the bag, no
cloudy water, the water in the bottle after the pour was pretty clean. When I started to do bag #2 the bottle was far cloudier. Some came out and clouded my tank. So I split the rest of the bag in two to try the bucket method and the pillow case method.
On to pillow case method with Bag#2. Wasn't fun, got more wet feet, cleaned the floor, did’nt worsen the tank cloudiness so it must have worked.
Sooo, I'm sticking to my guns of try a bit of the sand in a pail to judge how dirty it is first. If only one rinse is needed, go with the bottle method. Make sure you have 3 bottles on hand to speed it up, you'll get in a good flow. If the bucket method is just not appealing at all, the bottle method scares you, pillow case it. Rinse the heck out of it outdoors with good shoes . Throw out the pillow case afterwards as I can see it really messing up a washer and plumbing as you can’t get all the sand out of the pillow case.
I did my 30 gallon with fish in it, as it did cloud the water somewhat because of the nasty bag #2, one big
water change about 80%, cleared the water no problem.
I did start to take pictures to post, but after seeing this was going to be more of a trial and error and a bit of a process, the pictures got put on the back-burner.
Sorry about the long winded first post, but I felt after all the amazing info I've gotten over months of reading and stealing info and ideas I owed 3 hours of trial and testing and great end results!
