Adding sand to existing reef aquarium…

[thedon986]

Thanks for the info. My tank is a little over a year old and is a 4.1 gallon pico.

I would add maybe half of what you plan to add total at a time, rinsed or not and let that settle in for a few weeks then see how it looks and add more. I added my extra sand about a month ago and the diatoms are just starting to fade and I have another half to add soon.

 

[Stealthreefer]

IF you put it in a container and then put the container under the water you're not going to have the silt.

I run "miracle mud" and have since the 90s. It's as silty as it gets and I can add it to a tank and it will be clear the next day.

Rinsing live sand will kill the reason to have live sand. If you're going to rinse don't rinse live sand.
It's crazy to me how much people are terrified of sand these days.

 

[Stealthreefer]

Fill a cup with sand. Put the cup under the water.
Let the sand fully saturate. Then pour the sand where you want it.
These posts are making me laugh.
I just put 20 pounds of miracle mud in my sump and it was clear before my wife got home from work.

Watch come videos of the guys who do fresh water planted tanks on youtube. Watch how they do sand and try to do it that way. It was a professional planted tank guy and Leng himself that taught me how to manage sand/mud.

 

[nothing_fancy]

Once a year or so I like to add a little fresh sand to clean up the sand bed when it starts to look a little lived in. For that I have always just used a 5 gal bucket of water that was pulled out during a water change. I put the sand in there and let it circulate with a strong pump. Usually just forget about it for a week and when its time to do maintenance the folllowing week I have some nice clean sand. Then I just cup it out and bring it to the sand bed carefully. I've done this many times and never had an issue. If I was replacing all the sand of course the approach would be much different and would involve a lot of rinsing.

 

[brandon429]

What's missing from this thread: any semblance of work regarding sand in other people's tanks so that differences in outcomes can be noted

When we make all advice off what our tanks did, one tank at home, we omit any details that are involved when other people take actions in their own home

It's a good thing we have sixty pages of pre rinsing caribsea live sand in other people's tanks, about four hundred jobs:

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

How strong are our results for other people's tanks regarding sandbed science? Any dinos? Any cyano?

 

[vetteguy53081]

Ive added sand twice as i added fish who required more. I simply rinsed under bath tub water pressure and poured it into a 24" funnel (used for automotive) to the bottom which reduced any amount of cloudiness and suspension in the tank and targeted the sand where i wanted it.

 

[brandon429]

work threads make it handy to see what steps align all reefs for the same outcome. I'm not seeing very many of them here, any, but I did see a lot of first person testimony on what happens with sandbed handling which causes confusion.


any reef tank that wants to deal with sand and get a known perfect outcome can do what we've been doing there for nine years running and they will for sure get that outcome.

 

[Stang67]

Do you mix in the new sand with the existing or just pour over the existing?

 

[brandon429]

depends on the degree of waste in the bottom layers. I would never cap off a pent up sandbed, I'd do a total clean of it all like we did in the thread, add the new to the old both rinsed as we do, then that will give the longest lifespan to the system before eutrophication (problem invasions from storing up too much waste in reef systems) sets in

if the current bed is new, or has been cared for and isn't sinked up, or has busy turning animals like diamond gobies, adding rinsed sand on top won't hurt.

 

[mfinn]

Rinse.
Get a funnel. Cut it to the size of 2 foot section of PVC pipe.
Place pipe on bottom.
Slowly add sand to pipe using funnel.
You can now slowly move the pioe off of the bottom and put the sand wherever you want.
That's how I've done it many many times.
Makes hardly any mess.
Make sure flow is off.

That's how I've done it multiple times.

 

[jabberwock]

IF you put it in a container and then put the container under the water you're not going to have the silt.

I run "miracle mud" and have since the 90s. It's as silty as it gets and I can add it to a tank and it will be clear the next day.

Rinsing live sand will kill the reason to have live sand. If you're going to rinse don't rinse live sand.
It's crazy to me how much people are terrified of sand these days.

THE SAND!!!!!!

 

[Dburr1014]

live only
no rinse
put it in a shallow tub and put the whole tub in the water and then slowly pour it out of tub under the water and close to bottom.

Live or dry, absolutely rinse it to avoid a sand storm and use a pvc pipe to get it where you want it. Dump it in the top with a funnel.

And what's this about starting a cycle of you add sand???
That's a new one on me. Why would it??? It will not, no sir!

 

[Adamc13o3]

How did this work out? If I add more sand to a 5 month old tank, will I have any bacteria bloom issues of any kind? I just need more sand nothing wrong with the existing sand fyi

 

[thedon986]

How did this work out? If I add more sand to a 5 month old tank, will I have any bacteria bloom issues of any kind? I just need more sand nothing wrong with the existing sand fyi

I added 15 pounds to 80 pounds and got diatoms then dinos when the dry aragonite sucked up all my phosphates. Go slow if using dry. I think live wet may handle it better, but don’t rinse.

 

[jabberwock]

Live wet, don't rinse, make a sand funnel. it was only a little cloudy for a couple hours.

 

[Reeferbadness]

Rinse.
Get a funnel. Cut it to the size of 2 foot section of PVC pipe.
Place pipe on bottom.
Slowly add sand to pipe using funnel.
You can now slowly move the pioe off of the bottom and put the sand wherever you want.
That's how I've done it many many times.
Makes hardly any mess.
Make sure flow is off.

I’ve done this a few times - works great. Never rinsed though - what’s the thinking behind that ?

 

[brandon429]

Click the link in post 25

See the first pic, that’s why we rinse. We do rinse bagged live sand, that’s sixty pages of rinsing it in the link above. Not rinsing it gets you a chance at long term clouding, examples shown on page one in the link.

The reason we rinse bagged live sand is because that’s what the thread shows. Nobody here can manage 60 pages of the same work without rinsing, so we do the rinse because it works every time.

If you skip rinsing, sometimes it works but sometimes it doesn’t and it’s not worth skipping it to see

To know how much clouding to expect ahead of time, take a sample of sand and put it into a clear glass of water, see if it’s dirty when added. A rinsed set of sand grains falls like snow globe grains

There is no benefit to non rinsing other than saving some work. We even have examples in there, page one, showing mass clouding after someone let the original unrinsed sand settle out. One move of rocks and all their fish and coral were cloud bathed for days.

 

[00W]

I’ve done this a few times - works great. Never rinsed though - what’s the thinking behind that ?

It's heavier, settles better.
Honestly, I find it goes down the tube easier dry and I've done it both ways.
If you know what you're doing, practice a bit I've never had it cloud the tank not rinsing.
I don't know anything about sand rinse threads or stuff of that nature.
I do have a 20 that I remove and add sand to 2-3 times a year.
I don't like sand, how it looks dirty but my LTA likes it so I oblige her if you know what I mean.