Adding old sand into new aquarium?

[dylanp]

I already know it's a bad idea to reuse sand as it's holding a lot of nutrients. I set up a nano aquarium and was cycling but wanted a deep sand bed so I dug out all the sand in the nano and added old sand from a previous aquarium. All sand was rinsed so I'll have to start the cycle again. I'm not to worried about the issues caused by the old sand as I'm still planning before I put anything in but I'm curious about what the struggle of reusing sand is. The reason I dug out the old sand is because it's crushed coral and the added sand was silica sand.

 

[evil Nick]

I already know it's a bad idea to reuse sand as it's holding a lot of nutrients. I set up a nano aquarium and was cycling but wanted a deep sand bed so I dug out all the sand in the nano and added old sand from a previous aquarium. All sand was rinsed so I'll have to start the cycle again. I'm not to worried about the issues caused by the old sand as I'm still planning before I put anything in but I'm curious about what the struggle of reusing sand is. The reason I dug out the old sand is because it's crushed coral and the added sand was silica sand.

good thing I read this. I was going to re used some of my sand from my 29 in the 20 thinking it would just help keep the bac load up.

 

[Sniperhank]

The sand would have come with beneficial bacteria in it, though when looking for a deep sand bed it wouldn't be bringing anything you are looking for over with it due to the bacteria in a deep sand bed live in the oxygen free areas.
Adding sand, new or old, will not restart the cycle. If cycling or already cycled, just adding sand won't restart or hold back what was already going on in the system as the bacteria would already be established at some sort of level. The bacteria that will establish itself in the oxygen free areas don't really interact with the nitrate cycle in such a way to change the ammonia/nitrite levels in the system as they are theorized to lower nitrates, though there hasn't been any studying of this to my knowledge to prove it one way or another and can usually get some levels of these bacteria in the oxygen free areas of our porous rocks anyway.

 

[Elude82]

In my opinion, old sand in an establish tank is great. Two things I ALWAYS do when starting a new tank: I ALWAYS seed it with some sand from one of my established tanks. Also I’ll do a premature water change in an established tank to use that water to seed it as well. I personally feel this is a “quick cheat” to avoid tanks from crashing. I also use a bottle of bacteria like Smart Start. Rinsing the sand will get rid of beneficial bacteria. Even most sand you buy has beneficial bacteria in it. And last get a bucket or two of Nutri Sea Sea water. That’s also loaded with beneficial bacteria.