Rinsing Sand?

I would rinse it out really well with RO water then put it in your tank. I don't know how long the sand was in the other set up but it usually collects a lot of detritus. Just my thoughts. Hope that helps.

 

Would rinsing with fresh water kill off some of the organisms in the sand? I'm not sure if rinsing with salt water would be better or not, but it's something you could consider.

 

yes it'll kill critters if done in freshwater...however, unless your sand has been submerged in saltwater while in those buckets... it's likely already got plenty of dead organisms in it (making rinsing it rather necessary, if you want to avoid an ammonia spike).

Typically when I transfer salt from an existing system to a new system I rinse it with warm saltwater, I'm able to rinse out about 50lbs worth of sand with a 5g bucket of saltwater. Normally I put a couple of scoops of sand in a bowl and a couple of scoops of water (same cup size as the scoop of sand) and run my hands through out it, turning it up, dump off the dirty water, add a couple more scoops of the water, turn over with hands, dump off the dirty water and put the sand in the tank. That is how I keep live stuff live if needed.