Can you leave live sand in bucket of water overnight?

[elmuyloco5]

I'm considering making the millons of treks to the ocean to get my live sand, but since we can only get a limited amount per person per day.....it might take a little while. Can I keep it overnight in a bucket of SW til I can get to fixing it into the tank the next day? I don't think I'll have enough time to do both in the same day.....have to tear a bit of my tank apart first.

[Toirtis]

You can, but it will probably be very dead (and stinky) sand by morning.

[elmuyloco5]

ugh! well thanks at least i know it will be a late night endeavor!

[quarryshark]

If you put about 6" of water on top of the sand and place a small PH for water movement, it would be OK.
It may be OK overnight anyway.

[clowninround]

You may want to put a heater in there as well. Most of my sand came from siesta keys florida. How exactly are you going to get it? Off the beach in the water or by boat?

[Toirtis]

Even with those, I would be worried about the sand at the bottom (like all the stuff at the bottom of a 5 gallon bucket...a good 14" down and far out of the reach of the influence of the heater and PH)....perhaps if you put it in a 3" layer in a long, wide rubbermaid tub with the heater and a pair of powerheads...

[elmuyloco5]

I'm getting it off the beach at low tide so the sand is sure to be some that is always covered with water (per suggestion by our local aquarium) in Hawaii. I would like to put it directly in the tank, but I have a UGF and some decor and such to get out....along with three fish. Depending on when low tide will be that day, determines how much time I have to get this done. It won't be too much sand as I plan to put it over the CC that I have in there already. I've heard that you should pour it through some PVC to keep it from blowing up in to the water column, so I guess I'll be trying that out. Do you happen to know how long I can store seawater by the way? We get it filtered from our aquarium but the traffic on this godforsaken island is worse than the DC Beltway! We get about 20 gal at time for water changes and all, but I was hoping to cut the trips down there a bit by storing it. What do you all suggest?

[Brenden]

Take the CC out or your sand will just end up under it before long. Kind of like shaking a bag of potato chips. All the big pieces come to the top.

[elmuyloco5]

Is there a layer of something I put inbetween the two? The CC is helping keep my ph up, I'm afraid it might drop too much if I take it out. Right now it's not even up enough (7.9). I was planning to add more base rock though and hoping it would help. We don't have very fine sand here anyway, it's more like CC to start out, just a tad finer.

[Brenden]

I am not aware of anything safe to put between them. Someone slse might know of something. Aragnite sand (beach sand) will also keep your ph up. You can also get 60 lb boxes of base rock from somewhere like hirocks.com for $48-$89 (hirock prices).

[elmuyloco5]

Yeah but to ship those to Hawaii is unreal! I know the place is named HIrocks.....but it's in California. Hawaii has all sorts of odd import laws too that keep us from getting most of the stuff available on the mainland like that. Can't order LR from any of the shops or anything. No one is allowed to sell it here....so we're left to try to grow it. I plan to get more base rock this weekend as I'd like to make a nicer looking cave set up in my tank (I have about 25 lbs of it now). I know the sand should help, but wouldn't the cc be even better?

[Brenden]

Actually hirocks gets their rock shipped in from Hawaii. They are located in Canada. I spent a month snorkeling and diving in Hawaii there is bound to be a place you can get some rock there. I personally have never had CC but most everyone on this board will recommend sand over it. CC traps food and waste easily and causes nitrate levels to rise.

[elmuyloco5]

I know they get their rocks sent from here, for some stupid reason that's legal. There's also a place on the Big Island that ship lr and fish, but if you look closely at their fine print it states that they can't ship to Hawaii. Hypocritical I know. (sorry I saw CA and thought California....not Canada). I can buy base rock no prob.

[clowninround]

We used an X large sand shovel from a kids sand playset, that was SO MUCH easier to work with. We went out neck deep at low tide, my husband dove down and grabbed my leg for stability I had a small bucket for him to fill and when it was full i would wade back to the shore line and fill up our 5g bucket (1/2 full). That way I knew it wasn't contaminated.