What is the Easiest way to clean a sand bed fresh out of an Old Tank?

[JesterGrin_1]

Ok I know this will not be easy to clean a couple of hundred pounds of sand bed but some pointers would be great.

It is a Plenum Sand bed of which has been set up for about 11 or 12 years. But right now there is nothing in the tank except for rock and the Sand Bed. I was thinking of removing everything and just going back in with 2 to 4 inches of Sand. It just seems a shame to discard all of that sand bed.

Thank You. :)

[Sherita]

It's pretty easy, just messy and time consuming. Fill a 5 gallon bucket about 1/3 full of dirty sand, turn the waterhose on full blast and stick it in the bucket all the way to the bottom, swish the sand around with your hand and keep rinsing until the runoff water turns clear. Drain the water off, dump clean sand in another bucket, fill dirty bucket 1/3 full of sand. Repeat until you either get done, or decide that new sand would be worth it LOL. I normally rinse all sand that I get my hands on, let it sit in the clean bucket until dry, then store in a clean brute trash can until I need it.