Mandarin Goby transfer

[Aquaman99]

Hello All,

The 55 gallon tank I purchased includes a Mandarin Goby. I am planning on using about half of the sand that is in the tank already and mixing it with new aragonite sand. I am also getting several pounds of live rock.

Do you think there will be enough life in the remaining live sand when I set the tank back up for the goby to live on?

 

[thincat]

A word of caution, Stirring up old sand can release Hydrogen sulfide into the tank enviroment. Live sand and live rock in a stale situation will have lots of die off. How long do you plan to leave the tank before you set it up?

 

[Aquaman99]

The town I am picking it up from is about 1 hour away.

I figure roughly 2-3 hours to break it down, 1 hour travel time, 2-3 hours to set it back up.

I will have all the live rock and live sand in buckets and covered with existing tank water.

Would it help if I layed the new aragonite layer down first, then put a layer of live sand on top of it?

 

[thincat]

You should be okay and either way on the new sand. I would still rinse the old sand in some fresh saltwater before putting it into the tank. This is to remove any dead material in the sand. The bacteria will still be there after the rinse just less DOC(desolved organic compounds) to die and fowl your tank up with.

 

[milhous3er]

How do you rinse sand ?? Am I missing something here ?? I've always used CC as my substrate, so sand is new to me. You can't just poke holes in the bag and run water through it, it'll go everywhere.

 

[thominil]

See if the mandarin eats prepared foods when you get the tank set back up. If not, I have my doubts about that tank itself supporting it, so you may wan't to look into getting a sump and packing it full of live rock and macro algae and at least attempt to train it to prepared foods.

As for rinsing, if its anything like rinsing new sand, just stick the sand in a bucket, add a little sw, stir the sand up so the dead particles are floating in the water, pour the water out, and repeat until the water in the bucket contains very little particles.

 

[milhous3er]

ok gotcha !! Sounds easy enough

 

[thominil]

Don't forget to use SALTWATER if it's sand that just came from a cycled tank, sometimes people miss the smallest details which creates huge problems. If it's new, bagged sand, freshwater will work.

 

[thincat]

+1...