Disinfecting Sand, Not Just Cleaning It

[punman]

From time to time a tank is empty and then it gets a good cleaning. I have a 90 gallon with some nice "salt and pepper" African cichlid sand. Cheap pool filter sand I just throw out and start over. This stuff is nice and much more expensive. I know how to clean sand properly. What I am wondering is if there is a way to really disinfect it for future use: salt? Could a weak bleach solution be added in a bucket of water and then rinsed and soaked in chlorine remover solution? Other ideas that have worked?

 

[phreeflow]

Bleach, hydrogen peroxide, potassium permanganate. I’d probably use hydrogen peroxide

 

[FINWIN]

boiling water.

 

[Sassafras]

Worked at a local tropical fish store decades ago and "bleaching" a tank was standard procedure to sterilize it after disease. Tanks were standard 10 gallon: poured in about a cup of household bleach, stirred the gravel up real good, let it circulate for 2-3 hours, then siphoned the water and gravel out and washed the gravel with a strong flow of water in the industrial sink in the back room. Returned the gravel (and decorations, if any) to the tank and refilled it. Then used a sodium thiosulfate solution dechlorinator at several times the usual dose to remove the residual chlorine. Sounds harsh, but I never remember any ill effects on the fish that were added to cycle the tank back into use.

 

[punman]

Thank you for the input. I may just go the bleach idea, but will wait a few more days to see if there are other responses. Maybe boiling is safer. Would it be as effective?

 

[duanes]

I also use bleach after a bout with a disease, especially a bacterial disease where the bacteria can remain inert in a dry smudge of dirt or sand for a long time, the impermeable cell walls of certain bacteria need to be oxidized to be destroyed, and bleach is powerful enough.
After in received a few cichlids infected with Columnaris, after they died, I poured a gallon of household bleach in their 50 gallon QT tankard let it oxidize everything the water touched, nets, tubing, even the tank lids..

 

[punman]

Then a heavy dose of dechlorinator, Duanes?

 

[Fishyboy🐟🐟🐟]

Then a heavy dose of dechlorinator, Duanes?

Plus don’t let it sit too long it’s either really acidic or alkaline and will destroy the sealant if left for too long in the tank ( if a heavy dose of bleach)

 

[cvar]

I would spread it on a tarp and leave it to bake in the hot sunlight for a couple of days.

 

[LBDave]

I just cleaned a bunch of plastic plants with bleach. Rinse/soak twice and then soak in water treated with large dose of Safe. Don't see why the same couldn't be done with gravel.