Transporting Live Sand

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Kristy3693

Aquarium Advice Freak
Joined
Dec 26, 2012
Messages
460
Location
Kentucky, USA
Hello! I am on the verge of buying a tank on Craig's List. It is a really sweet deal, an already up and running 120 gallon, fish and all. I have heard you should never disrupt your sand bed because it can crash. Would it cause problems to remove the 120 lbs of sand to transport and put it back in a couple hours later? Thanks for your help!
 
Do not do not do not reuse the sand, It will cause more problems then its worth. BUY NEW SAND. even when you rinse it you will not remove all the phosphates that are in the sand. This will cause algae outbreaks and other headaches. You will also start a tank off with high nitrates because theres no way to totally clean the sand out. Also if you dont clean it in saltwater it wont be live anymore and you would spend a ton of money in salt unless you have an ocean near by and then you are just asking for other problems. Save yourself the time and problems and buy new sand. Also 120lbs of sand in a 120g tank seems like way more sand then you need. Its better to have 1-2" of sand then to have 3-4" of sand.
 
Do not do not do not reuse the sand, It will cause more problems then its worth. BUY NEW SAND. even when you rinse it you will not remove all the phosphates that are in the sand. This will cause algae outbreaks and other headaches. You will also start a tank off with high nitrates because theres no way to totally clean the sand out. Also if you dont clean it in saltwater it wont be live anymore and you would spend a ton of money in salt unless you have an ocean near by and then you are just asking for other problems. Save yourself the time and problems and buy new sand. Also 120lbs of sand in a 120g tank seems like way more sand then you need. Its better to have 1-2" of sand then to have 3-4" of sand.

Yea good call. If it is in an established system you don't want to reuse it. Since I'm sure you will have plenty of live rock, dry sand can be used as it will get seeded by the rock (much cheaper than live sans too)... Or an option is to use new dry sand and put just a couple of cups of the old sand to help seed it too.
 
Yea good call. If it is in an established system you don't want to reuse it. Since I'm sure you will have plenty of live rock, dry sand can be used as it will get seeded by the rock (much cheaper than live sans too)... Or an option is to use new dry sand and put just a couple of cups of the old sand to help seed it too.

Yeah you could do the old seeding method but you wouldnt need to. Would it hurt anything? No. Honestly you have more then enough Beneficial bacteria in your rock then you need to run a system. I run a 75g reef with no sand and ~60lbs of rock and have plenty of bacteria to confert my ammonia. Remeber how small the bacteria is they will just expant in the rock to help theres plenty of room in the system and removing the sand bed wont be an issue at all as far as cycling goes.
 
Thanks guys. Plus with buying new I am a little happy I won't have to transport and rinse the old stuff. There is 150 lbs of live rock so I think that is plenty of BB. thanks again for your help.
 
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