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Is there anything that can survive boiling water?

2K views 21 replies 10 participants last post by  PfunMo 
#1 ·
We own a house on a nice creek with some beautiful sand. There are nice little pieces of clear rocks, sand, little specs of gold colored rocks, and many different sizes and shapes of different sand/rocks.

I know it is easier just to buy play sand but there is nothing out on the market that looks as nice as this.

I have several 10 gallon pots with large boilers and was thinking of boiling the sand and getting enough to fill my tank up.

So my question is: Is there anything that can survive boiling water that could cause harm to my fish?

Anything else i should worry about when trying to use sand from a river/creek?

Thanks
 
#2 ·
I live right on the water also. I have never gone as far as boiling rocks etc...but all my tank decorations are removed from the water behind my house or our slate quarry. Usually, I just let the rocks I want to use sit and dry in the sun for a couple days, then I scrub them and put them in the tank.

Maybe I have been lucky with not boiling, but have never had any ill effects from using locally acquired rocks etc. I may be wrong but I highly doubt many of the rocks etc that people buy were ever boiled.....
 
#3 ·
There are several bacteria than can live in either boiling water or ice itself, I'm not saying that those types will be in the river sand. I would boil it just to be safe though.
 
#6 ·
Measure the weight of one bucket of sand, see how many pounds it is, then divide that number by 125 and that should tell you how many buckets you need.
 
#7 ·
wlyons9856 said:
Measure the weight of one bucket of sand, see how many pounds it is, then divide that number by 125 and that should tell you how many buckets you need.
So if his bucket weighs 20 lbs he should use 0.16 buckets? :wink:
For my 48" x18" tank I am using about 75 lbs of sand... not sure of your footprint but I'm assuming it's a six foot tank? If so I'd say go with between 100 and 125 lbs of sand. Probably around 2 five gallon buckets.
 
#9 ·
Hi GaFishMan1181,

I have read concerns about metal content in rocks and the effects on aquarium water. I do not know much about this myself, but may be something you want to look into.

Sounds like there is at least pyrite in your river, so may want to see if it is ok.

Again, I have no knowledge on this just something you may want to look into; could be totally fine.

Thanks,
Matt
 
#10 ·
Endospores can survive being boiled in water unless it is for many hours. This shouldn't be something that would be of concern for a fish tank however. :)
 
#11 ·
Thanks for everyone's comments.

I think i will boil it and hope that there are no bacteria that can survive the heat and harm my fish. As far as live parasites go i am guessing they should all be killed by the heat.

I didnt really think about the metal content that could be in the sand. The substrate is 90% sand but the other 10% looks like small pieces of crused up rocks of different types.

When i go to collect the sand i will take a few macro pictures of it so yall can see.

Think i'll go with 3 buckets to be safe and boil it for 30 minutes.
 
#12 ·
Much easier and safer as well as more effective would be a bleach soak. That's what the pros do to clean up your drinking water. While there is a fair amount of concern for the chlorine in fish tanks it is pretty much proven to be just hysteria not backed by facts. If you read a reliable source on chemicals, you will find it reacts with organics very readily. That's why it cleans up the laundry and kills the bacteria in water. The DNR standards require a 24 hour exposure time. That is because some things we want to kill can form hard shells and it takes some time for the chlorine to penetrate those. The problem with chlorine from a sanitation standpoint is that it does also gas off quickly into the air. The major water providers now use chloramine which does not disipate into the air so well. For cleaning up rocks and wood for the tank, many of us use a bleach bath overnight. For removing the chlorine then it is a matter of rinsing to dilute it and then when it air dries the rest is gone into the air. You might not need to do anything and boiling for several hours might work but bleach is easy and what the government uses to clean up water.
 
#14 ·
How much bleach do i use in half a 5g bucket filled with sand>?

How long do i do this for?

Seems like i would have to rinse it alot to get all the bleach out. Dont want to harm my fish with bleach.
 
#15 ·
Wouldn't you just use "dechlorinator" to get rid of the bleach? Since it is just chlorine anyway, I'd think you could use the same stuff you use to get the Chlorine out of your tap water (though perhaps at higher dose).
 
#16 ·
I rarely measure the bleach I use. Is glug a measurement ?? It is really cheap stuff but for a bucket a 1/2 cup is for sure enough. Part of the reason there is some question on how much is the way it combines with anything organic. Small bits of wood or bugs, dirt,etc. will all react to "use up" some of the chlorine. If one understood chemistry better, I'm sure there is a formula for what happens but I've never really worried about that angle. I just want it to be plenty to have some to spare. In drinking water the Missouri DNR required 4 ppm left over when you got it at the tap just so it was sure to kill anything it might run into on the way from storage to you. For getting it out, rinsing is step one but even if that were not done, air drying would remove what was left. When you get a drink sometimes you get a chlorine smell. That is the chlorine gassing off and leaving. If you spread gravel out to dry it will be good when dry as the chlorine will dissipate into the air just like it does out of your glass of water. To make one feel safer, it never hurts to add a double dose of Prime the first time. You may also be going through a tank cycle to get it ready??? After that amount of time there is certain to not be any chlorine left in your gravel. Chloramine is a different story so always treat for it.
 
#17 ·
A sanitizing solution with bleach and water is used to disinfect SURFACES. Chlorine loses its sanitizing effectiveness when in contact with oils and dirt. I would definitely recommend you NOT use bleach for this sand. It will not be effective and you will be wasting time and effort. :)
 
#19 ·
CichMomma said:
A sanitizing solution with bleach and water is used to disinfect SURFACES. Chlorine loses its sanitizing effectiveness when in contact with oils and dirt. I would definitely recommend you NOT use bleach for this sand. It will not be effective and you will be wasting time and effort. :)
What is sand if not a lot of surfaces? Bleach will work to clean the sand of all sorts of organic material as well kill most if not every living thing in it.
 
#20 ·
PfunMo said:
Are you aware a strong bleach solution is what is used to clean the inside of new water towers as they have manufacturing contaminants like oil and grease? It is true that the solution is made stronger because the contaminant is stronger.
Yes, the inside of the tower is, I presume, a hard, flat surface.
 
#21 ·
BillD said:
CichMomma said:
A sanitizing solution with bleach and water is used to disinfect SURFACES. Chlorine loses its sanitizing effectiveness when in contact with oils and dirt. I would definitely recommend you NOT use bleach for this sand. It will not be effective and you will be wasting time and effort. :)
What is sand if not a lot of surfaces? Bleach will work to clean the sand of all sorts of organic material as well kill most if not every living thing in it.
It is true that sand has a lot of surfaces. It is, however, not considered a "surface". Yes, bleach could work to kill organic material in the sand but why bother with a harmful chemical when boiling or baking would achieve the same goal?
 
#22 ·
Actually the inside of a tank is a pretty rusty mess when they get done with all the walking around, welding and cutting. There are also various levels and probes that need to be cleaned as well. Throw in a few guys throwing in a few cigs[/i] and spitting a bit and you can see why they want a good sanitizer before we store drinking water. When a pipe gets torn open like when a backhoe hits it, it often gets dirt in it if the pipe is on a hill. When you know dirt and rocks have gone down the pipe, you have to put a bunch of extra chlorine pellets in to clean the pipe, rocks and water before it gets to the customer. I was involved with a community water system at a lake where almost all the pipes ran up and down hills. One of the major nuisances when pipes were cut was finding where the rocks wound up. Often it was at the strainer at the meter but the bigger rocks often stopped at valves all along and we would get reduced flow. You are correct that it will only clean the surfaces it can reach but that is far better with soaking rather than a simple rinse. With wood it is a matter of how long and what amount of bleach you use, how deep it soaks in and cleans. I guess if one carried it too extremes it would do away with the whole piece if we kept adding bleach.
 
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