Substrate from mother nature herself

blackcat

blackcat

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Jun 13, 2005
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Hey I want to get sand for a planted aquarium tank that I am about to set up. After I get lots of this sand, I will wash, boil, sanitize in a pc for 60 mins at 15psi. Will using the pressure cooker take any of the iron away from my future plants? Any other input is always welcome.
 
A pressure cooker would subject the material to heat and pressure. The heat would cause any plant matter to break down faster and could aid some chemical reactions. Pressure would in theory drive what ever you have in your water into the particles during the cooking process. Unless iron is water soluable, which I doubt, you won't loose that element from your material.
 
sand

You could just wash the sand. Unless you're getting it from a beach, what would be in the sand that could live in water & harm the fish that cooking would get rid of? Aside from that, it might ruin your pressure cooker.
 
Ok, I was going to get sand from a creek behind my house. I was just scared that the sand that I take out of the creek would cause distruction to a fish tank without cleaning it very well first. I thought this because there has to be a billion more micro organisms living in creek sand.

So all I really need to do is pick up some creek sand, and wash it. Then that is it?
 
You need to boil the sand. Put it in a pot and bring it to a rolling boil. Keep it there for at least 10 minutes. Then turn it off and skimm the stuff on top. Rinse and repeat a few times. After that rinse it off.
 
it would be easier to just go buy some really nice sand. I don't know if you are near a Home Depot, but I know a lot of people have used the #50 Playsand from them, its like $3.00 for 50lbs. I just rinsed it repeatedly and used it in my tank, it turned out really great and the fish seem to love it, especially my cories.

here's a link about using sand:

http://www.buckmanshome.com/reconstruction.html

by the way, if you are doing a planted tank, then you'll want another base substrate to provide nutrients, something like fluorite, thats what the article uses I think. Good luck...
 
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I would absolutely NOT put sand in a pressure cooker/canner. If some of that sand were to get up in the spout on the top & clog it then you could have a real dangerous situation on your hands.

I would boil it for a while in a regular pan on the stove, if I were doing this. (In fact, that's what I did with the wood that's in my 10 gallon tank and what I do when I reuse gravel.
 
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