Reuse or New Sand

[Steven_a_jones]

I have an established tank (15 years) that I am going to have to take down and move (putting in hard wood floors). Should I wash and reuse the sand in the new tank that will be set back up or start with a new sand bed?

 

[ChiCity]

New sand, definitely new sand!

 

[landlubber]

you can wash it from everything i've read but based on the risk associated with trapped nitrate and just that i never feel i ever wash sand good enough i just replaced mine when i moved.

 

[Orangezuk]

Honestly I dont know about what to think on an established tank. How long will you have it down & how will you be housing/maintaining your livestock?
I'm in the process of resetting/restart, after total tear down & storage. I washed my sand & planed to rewash. A friend said to me "dude! live sand is 60-75$ for what ya need, why screw around and chance it". That being said I'm starting off fresh. I'd like to hear others thoughts

 

[nemo1017]

New sand. The old sand has 15 years worth of gunk in it that you don't want to stir up. You can attempt to wash it extremely thoroughly, but I don't recommend that approach.

 

[brandon429]

new sand, and rinse the hound out of it before you use it, doesn't matter if its live or dry sand. rinsing doesn't make bacteria go away, or hospitals would just sterilize everything with tap water. inputting new sand is ideal, inputting sand that cannot cloud no matter how its disturbed is uber ideal.

 

[Dan I]

New sand would be ideal. Old sand will have some stuff you wouldn't want to stir up into the water column.

 

[brandon429]

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/t...ead-aka-one-against-many.230281/#post-2681445

Steven
during the move/takedown and after its all done would you kick us some pics there? that thread is for prepping the giant risk for a super old system in doing a sand swap. we think we can do them everytime without a recycle, if we can brainstorm all the places waste will hide during the process.

 

[nly04]

After 15 years of used, I am not sure it still sand or mud and clay now. New sand for me.

 

[Alfrareef]

Always new!!!

 

[PatW]

You could rinse the daylights out of your current sand. It is a little messy to do it but no worse than removing it. It is probably a tad bit safer to replace with new.