Question: Adding sand

[dansemacabre]

So...should I put the sand in the tank AFTER I've put the saltwater in, or should I put the sand in and then the saltwater? I'm assuming that doing so after I've filled it with water will not only cause the sand to go all over the place (even if added down at the bottom from the bag) and could cause my water to overflow from the tank (I'm putting in roughly 300lbs. of sand). Just curious though, thanks all.

 

[triggers]

This is what I do. First I put the sand in. then I take a dinner plate and place it where i am going to pour the water into. the plate disperces the water in every direction keeping the sand from going all over the place. IMO its a great method.

 

[Sam]

Well if we are talking about dry base sand, I would follow the suggestions made here on rinsing it first to remove all of fine sediment. Run water and gently stir until the water runs clear. This will go a long way to getting you a clean tank quicker. With that said, if you do this, you will be adding wet sand to the tank based on how much you clean at one time. After all the sand is loaded, then I would add the water to the tank using the method described above or similar. If you are using tap water, you can just run a hose to the tank and fill it up, but you may want to know how much water you are actually adding to the tank, using measured quantities. If you are adding rock, yuo need to compensate for that displacement too. If you are planning to use LR, you cannot use this method. You will need to use conditioned saltwater to fill the tank and after aquascaping the tank, you should fill the tank to cover the LR. Will need to know a bit more about your intende set up. From the quantity of the sand, you are turning up a fairly large tank. Are you planning to use a DSB? if so you will need critters and LS activators etc. Let me know more and you are sure to get plenty of good advice here. 8)

 

[BillyZ]

IMO, if your setting up a new tank, which is what it sounds like, I would NOT rinse the sand. Add it to the tank first use either a plate or bowl or something to disperse the water as suggested above. I used this exact method about a week ago when setting up a 55 gallong tank with 100lbs of sand. I did NOT rinse the sand. After the sand was added placed a tupperware container in the bottom of the tank and I added 45 gallons of RO water and my water was crystal clear the next morning.

After the tank set for a day I added a heater and Powerhead and brought it up to temperature. Once temp was up I began adding the salt. Let it mix for a day then tested and adjusted the salt accordingly.

Water was spot on first try and very little hassle. If you'll be adding a lot of LR I would, obviously, sugggest using less water as your LR will displace a lot of water.

 

[dansemacabre]

Thanks

Thanks to all of you for your advice. I rinsed 3 of the 6 bags and I'm going to stop there. Sam, it is a 125Gal tank (72"x18") and I am going for a DSB of 4"+. I will be adding approx. 60 lbs. of base rock to begin with, and then adding some premium Fiji on top of it to "seed" the base rock. More LR will be added down the road (ie a few weeks) so I can aquascape and bring up the rock capacity. I'm not quite sure as to whether or not I should use un-cured to cycle the tank or should I use cured, as some die-off will occur anyway? Someone warned me that un-cured would cause such a large ammonia spike that it'd take forever for my tank to recover and complete the cycle. They aren't a saltwater guru though, so I figured I should ask all of you, since you know what's up. I'm thinking I will fill the tank 2/3 full and then when I add the rock I can add/remove water as needed (assuming that once I've acheived SG on the 2/3, I can simply add more RO/DI water if needed after adding the rock). Thanks for the help!

 

[Sam]

Sounds like you have a good plan. I would caution you on using uncured LR though, from what I hear it can create quite a stink. From what I have learnt, there should be no problem with cycling your tank with this however. It does not lenghten the cycle any longer. Anyway my vote is to use cured LR. If you use an online retailer, by the time you get it, there will be some die off so you will have enough bio material to cycle the tank if you just place this in the tank. If you go the uncured method, advice is to cure it separately in a large (Rubbermaid) container. One note of caution is that when it is cured by the retailers, they usually get rid of the nasty critters, like manthis shrimp, so think about that before you make a decision. If not, you can always cycle the tank with the cocktail shrimp method. Good luck with getting this going. 8)

 

[BillyZ]

uncured rock can certainly cause a stink. There are pros and cons to both cured and uncured. Here's my $.02 on the matter.

Cured:
Pros - less mess (no curing), don't need a skimmer for cycle, fewer bad hitchhikers
Cons - fewer hitchhikers in general. Less variety of life as most retailers will scavenge anything sellable off of them to sell seperately. Usually a little more expensive

Un-Cured:
Pros - More variety of life, more hitchhikers, usually a little less expensive
Cons - higher possability of bad hitchhikers. Skimmer needed for cycle (cause you're curing during the cycle)

as noted, curing rock can stink, if you're doing it in your display tank as part of the cycle then it's likely somewhere you're going to smell it. You can deffinetly take sam's suggestion and cure the rock in a tub elsewhere (check our articles section for a quick how to cure rock) then once it's cured, set your tank up and put your newly cured rock in there.

IMO, I would go with cured simply because it's a little easier for a beginner in SW. It's what I used in my first SW tank and I have plenty of awesome life on my LR.