drying out old sand inside or out?
 

I'm currently washing out about 300lbs of sugar sized sand and a little bit of courser stuff. I took this out of my 90 gallon garden eel tank and replaced it with 240lbs of new sand. Unfortunately I had to move the tank so I can replace the carpet.

I will eventually be moving so I want to keep the old sand. Rinsing the old sand still resulted in 3 days of tank cloudiness so washing out the old sand does not seem any more labor intensive then the new sand, but this time I'd like to do it properly. I'm not even 1/4 of the way done and I've had the hose on for hours. I'm thinking I will pour all the sand in a rubbermaid and let it dry out and then move it into 5 gallon buckets which can be portioned to weigh 50-100lbs and manageable. Once I put this down that's it until it dries. Outside I am concerned about bugs and dust. Inside I am concerned about 300+lbs of sand drying out for who knows how long on the floor.

Interested to see how this goes. I've got about 40 lbs of Fiji pink around 6 years old that I never used sitting in a rubber maid and it's still moist. Was thinking of doing the same now that it's getting hot and dry here. Good luck!

I've reluctantly decided to bring it back inside. Going to put as much as I can in a rubbermaid tub. Hopefully it will dry out in a week or so I will use some fans to help speed it up. Once its dry I will transfer it back to 5g buckets so it will be manageable to transport.

If you stir the sand in the rubbermaid, as many times in a day as you feel up to, the sand will dry faster.,
I have dried half a pail of sand a couple of times, and I found if you stir once a day, it took about a month to dry. The other time I have done it, when the sand was about 1" dry on top, I would transfer the dry to another pail. This increased production of dry.
Mind you, mine was coarser than sugar

I'd by a sand box , the more surface area for it to dry the faster it will be . Sun beating on it will help

Better yet, get a tarp, stretch it out and pin it down so it doesnt billow with any breeze and spread er out. On good early summer day of sunshine will dry it out well

+1

The big reason I don't want to do this outside is the creepy crawlies, also the wind.

I managed to bone dry a small amount maybe 10lbs in a 5 gallon bucket I put a fan over it and stirred it up a few times. Of course doing it like this would take 30 days but today I am trying to increase the amount. Eventually I hope to get it into 3-5 five gallon buckets so its easily stored and easy to transport. The one thing I did not like about 30 gallon rubbermaid I have is once I put it down I'll never be able to lift it again. Keeping it to 50-100lbs buckets makes it at least moveable.

If you have the room in a basement, I've seen a guy do something similar with one of those cheap Canadian tire hard plastic kiddy pools.