Sand

[Yvi]

I have a question, please. When you buy a used tank, do you use the existing sand or do you replace it with new sand? Thank you in advance for your help

 

[Alex villa]

I always replace it just because you never know what they put in their tank. Always better to be safe

 

[brandon429]

agreed I would switch 100%. just my opinion many do not, they just rinse and reuse. Phosphate uptake into substrates (rocks and sand) is an issue people go back and forth about, so just in case it does occur I like to switch to all new sand that I know nobody prior bathed in po4 just as a clean start hedge/.

 

[Wiz]

Yep, unless you are familiar with the tank it came from, new

 

[Yvi]

Thank you so much

 

[Robert Kelley]

Sand is relatively cheap- buy new!!

 

[Yvi]

Thank you. I should've actually asked this question several months ago when I first bought the tank. I was trying to figure out why everything in my tank was slowly dying and somebody told me that it was because I didn't change the sand when I got the tank. I wanted confirmation that this was accurate advice. Will be changing it now. Hopefully it will not be too late to salvage the things I still have alive in there.

 

[Robert Kelley]

With each new set up in this hobby you learn a few new things!!

 

[Yvi]

Unfortunately, they can be costly lessons .

 

[Robert Kelley]

Good point-

 

[Alex villa]

I would recommend siphoning it out section by section depending on how deep the sand bed is there is a lot of detritus and other organizers that can make your parameters go a bit crazy if it's a shallow bed it shouldn't be a problem though