old sand bed?

[limitedslip]

I am in the process of leveling my floor and buildng a new stand for my 125, The water has been outa the tank for about 2 weeks, but I did not remove the sand, When I refil the tank, should I replace the sand, or will the old sand be alright?

[greenmonkey51]

I'd clean the sand out and reuse it. There would of been all kind of life in the sand and when you drained the tank you killed all the life forms.

[Ranzan]

are you completely restarting the tank or just adding old water? if your completely restarting(re-cycling ect.) then keep sand as is it will help your cycling.

[limitedslip]

about 100gallons outa the 125 and the 40 from the sump are currently in rubbermaid trashcans w/ rio 1100s being used to keep the water circulating.

ima most likely gonna clean out the sand and sift it, because I scooped up a lil bit, and I didnt realize how many copepods were in there, and how bad they smell ><.

[mattsilvester]

Even if you clean the sand very, very well - its still gonna loads of bacterial films etc..... if you don't belive me, get a bit in a but it, wash is well, let it stand for a couple of days, stir it up and take a smell........ its gut wrenching!

If you are starting from scratch it will all just cycle and be fine...... if you are transferring livestock back into it, you are porbably going to see ammonia spikes etc. so its dodgy.

Its an excellent opertunity to go bare bottom :) ...... like I am doing at the moment!

[jda]

If you distrub the sand too much, then let the tank do a full cycle. I would replace it before I would wash it - the new sand will not have a bacteria die off and debris decay. If you do replace it, save a few pounds of the old stuff for a seed.