Adding live sand to established 4 y/o reef

[b4tn]

My initial thought is it should be fine but The only sand I could find in the size range I was looking for was aragalive bagged live sand. Is it live nitrifying bacteria or technically dead to kick start a cycle? I want to add the 16 lb bag but don’t want to end up with an ammonia spike. I have 70 g of water volume, maybe 150# of rock and another 50-70 lbs of sand already in there along with scrubber, filter sock, carbon reactor etc for 4 years now.

 

[Big G]

Last bag of the same sand I used was actually wet inside the bag. So I'm thinking the bacteria was just dormant. Probably was some dead, so I rinsed it in some fresh mixed saltwater. Left it in a 5 gal bucket with a heater and powerhead running. Added a bit to the DT each day over about 5 days. Worked good. No spikes or blooms observed. But my DT had plenty of rock, sand and sump with cheato & sea lettuce up and running for over a year when I added the sand. I was taking out the Fiji Pink that was just too fine and blows around and was constantly dirty. The Special Grade size is much nicer, stays cleaner BTW.

 

[b4tn]

I’m doing the same, replacing sugar sand with special grade lol I was thinking to do the same just put some in a bucket with power head and add a little at a time.