PDA

View Full Version : How to move/handle live sand

BZOFIQ
02/15/2008, 10:02 AM
I am going to be moving my 135 gallon reef soon and was wondering what to do with the sand. The system has been running for 3 years. I read somewhere that sand shouldn't be disturbed too much because gasses could be released or something.

My question is how to move the sand from my established tank to the new tank. Should I rinse it in tap water and start over with clean sand? Should I just rinse it in the water from the tank and put it straight into the new system? I understand that there are millions of living things in there that will probably die and I don't want this to affect the new envirnoment.

Another thing is what to do with sand that is currently in the fuge. There is ton of crap & animals in there. In the new tank I am going with much deeper sand bed so there will be at least that much of dead sand added on top as well.

I have never had this dillema so your help would be greatly appreciated. thank you all for your input.
shyland83
02/15/2008, 10:30 AM
I went through the same thing. I was running a DSB, I ended up scraping off the top inch or so of sand and keeping it in a seperate container. Then I moved the rest of the sand first and put the top inch back on top. Most of the life is in that top layer and you don't want to bury it under dead sand. My tank was not running nearly as long as your at the time (a little less than a year), But, I had no water quality issues after the move.

If you only have about an inch of sand in the tank and not running a deep bed i wouldn't even worry about it, just move it over.
BZOFIQ
02/15/2008, 10:38 AM
great,

yeah, there is only about 1" of sand in the tank. So I guess I could just move it and "lay" it on top of the dead sand in the new tank. In the new setup I am going with at least 3-4" of sand. I just used the calculator and figured I would need probably over 200Lbs of new sand. Ouch!

What about the "muck" in the refugium?? Should I just move it as well and place on top of the new fuge? There is so much crap in there my new crystal clear water will turn "black". Oh no!