Dirtydee12
Aquarium Advice Apprentice
- Joined
- Feb 12, 2012
- Messages
- 23
M moving soon and when i move i want to replace my live sand. If i do will my tank have to cycle again?
Live sand question?
- Thread starter Dirtydee12
- Start date
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Its been in my experience. So I can not speak for others I did this a smaller tank I went from crushed coral to sand. But I had the ability to move the live rock and inhabitants to another set up. I completely emptied tank and resetup and replaced the rock and then in habitants took leas then an hour to perform. If you don't have another set up grab a large plastics tote fill it up half way with new salt water do ur pwc into the tote as ur removing rock be carefully not to stir up the water.. then when ur totes full with rock and you inhabitants discard the rest. Make sure you make up enough water for rinsing you new sand as well to fill up the new tank.. the B.B. is not in the water collum so you shouldn't cycle
uh.oh...
Aquarium Advice Freak
I would say any large change to a tank, especially moving, will cause some die off and a "mini" cycle. Its true that your bacteria form mostly on the live rock, but something as traumatic as removing the sand bed, and thus all beneficial organisms therein will cause some disturbance. Not to say you won't be fine though. Its been done before. My advice would be to only do half (unless you have crushed coral). Saves money too, as you would have to buy only half as much live sand. I wouldn't recommend rinsing live sand either, as you'd rinse out a lot of the beneficial organisms. Expect an algae bloom, and an ammonia spike, but nothing as extreme as when you first cycled.
cmor1701d
Aquarium Advice Addict
How deep is your sandbed?
How much LR do you have?
What is the tank size?
Bacteria coat all surfaces, and the sand has way more surface area than the LR.
You want to take some of the old sand with you. Not all of it, but the top inch or two from part of the tank. That will help seed the new sand. Place it on top of the new sand.
Do you have the option to make new sw and store it at the new place. You could then also do a 50% water change at the new location.
How much LR do you have?
What is the tank size?
Bacteria coat all surfaces, and the sand has way more surface area than the LR.
You want to take some of the old sand with you. Not all of it, but the top inch or two from part of the tank. That will help seed the new sand. Place it on top of the new sand.
Do you have the option to make new sw and store it at the new place. You could then also do a 50% water change at the new location.
uh.oh...
Aquarium Advice Freak
genius.
Not really a debate..however and sand marked live that's been sitting on a shelf in a store isn't alive. I seen one of the bags.. yes it had a n expiration date but I don't see how its possible.. id rather save the money and go with pool filter sand.
