Adding sand to an established bare bottom tank

[nibkia]

Hello, I plan on moving my 200g tank in a few months and would like to add sand. The tank is 2 years old and bare bottom. It is well passed the uglies there's not a single bit of nuisance algae in the display and I would like to keep it that way. Is there any way to pre-cycle/cook/cure the sand to where I can add it without any bacterial bloom or nuisance algae explosion? The footprint of the tank is 72" by 21" and I plan on adding 1 to 1/2 inches of sand. I don't move for at least 2 months so I have time to do whatever the suggestion is. Will gladly provide and extra information needed.

Thanks in advance,
Nick

 

[Subsea]

Hello, I plan on moving my 200g tank in a few months and would like to add sand. The tank is 2 years old and bare bottom. It is well passed the uglies there's not a single bit of nuisance algae in the display and I would like to keep it that way. Is there any way to pre-cycle/cook/cure the sand to where I can add it without any bacterial bloom or nuisance algae explosion? The footprint of the tank is 72" by 21" and I plan on adding 1 to 1/2 inches of sand. I don't move for at least 2 months so I have time to do whatever the suggestion is. Will gladly provide and extra information needed.

Thanks in advance,
Nick

I can’t see adding the weight of sand to your move in a few months.

 

[exnisstech]

Following. I've done this twice but never tried cycling the sand first. I always end up with a lot of diatoms and even some cyano once.

 

[Gumbies R Us]

This is a good question, curious on this one as well

 

[nibkia]

I can’t see adding the weight of sand to your move in a few months.

We are moving to a nearby house that we already own, so I plan on keeping the sand there.

 

[SPS2020]

If it's not broke....

Good luck with the move!

 

[Tuan’s Reef]

We all want to know how this will turn out. Is this dry or live sand? Planning on rinsing the sand? How deep is the bed going to be?

 

[brandon429]

Here's fifty pages of that job


It would be neat if you'd take pictures of a pure cloudless sand bed addition. We could use that demonstration on a large tank to help others. I'm positive how the job will turn out:

Official Sand Rinse and Tank Transfer thread

If you are reading this thread to cure a tank invasion from a link I sent you, we do not need to identify your type of invasion here we do not need you to test anything at anytime regarding nitrate, phosphate etc Above all, we do not need to see a microscope slide picture of your invasion at...

www.reef2reef.com

There is no pre cycling because sandbed bacteria aren't important. You're doing fine without them due to that rule.

Pre rinse the sand as done in all jobs there, just add it. There is no pre cycle. It just takes up space and self cycles, life comes down from your live rock into the sand per pics on page one there of pod colonies after rip cleans. And if you remove it in the future it's bacteria won't be missed, due to the rule

We work all sides of that equation with costly tanks in the sand rinse thread

 

[brandon429]

The best trick is take one handful of the sand you buy and add it to a clear glass of water. You are done pre rinsing in prep when a drop sample registers 0.0000% clouding in the test glass of water

Do a final rinse in saltwater, add the cloudless sand however you like. This means you can use tap water for the pre rinse (final rinse in saltwater/ sand will be ready for cloudless transfer)

= all jobs shown there were tap water rinses. 100% of them.

The algae control is what all the tanks are doing with their lighting after the sand addition... it's in the light power reduction not a chemistry issue.

What's on file are page after page of cloudless sand subtraction and addition for reef tanks with algae control afterwards. No bottle bac used

No testing for anything. The cloudless pre rinse is the trick

 

[vetteguy53081]

I just did this in January and rinsed three bags lightly and entered the sand through a long funnel as below and it made the addition of sand of no mess or stirring up the tank. I used aragalive Fiji pink