Posted earlier about moving a 90. It was suggested to replace the sand in the tank instead of reusing it. What type of sand should I go with. Want to use a DSB. Will throwing out old send lose anything in it I will need? Should I put a new cuc in there when I replace sand. Some of the live rock has a bunch of algae on it.
Sand
- Thread starter ducks4rob
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Flippers4pups
Fins up since 1993
To me it really depends on how old the sand is. If it's not that old, I would rinse it really good, but you're going to lose everything in it.
Flippers4pups
Fins up since 1993
I'd probably start with new then.
with a 7 year old sand, I would start w fresh new sand while using few cups of the old sand to seed the new sand. If u want to save $ and have time, u can clean the old sand and reuse (again saving few cups of old sand to seed the cleaned sand). Melev's shows/explains how to rinse old sand here http://www.melevsreef.com/articles/how-to-rinse-out-an-older-sand-bed-and-why When I moved and started a new and larger tank, I made the mistake of throwing out all the old sand from previous tank and not using few cups of the old sand to seed the new tank. The new tank's DSB took a long time to seed.
For DSB it should be 4" depth, not less, of sugar fine or oolitic sand - small grain size sand of 0.050 to 0.200 in diameter. Larger grain size sand will not allow the necessary beneficial bacteria to grow. Also stay away from sand sifting critters/fish - sea star, gobies, wrasse. Ron Shimek explains in detail how DSB works and how to construct one here http://www.ronshimek.com/deep_sand_beds.html
For DSB it should be 4" depth, not less, of sugar fine or oolitic sand - small grain size sand of 0.050 to 0.200 in diameter. Larger grain size sand will not allow the necessary beneficial bacteria to grow. Also stay away from sand sifting critters/fish - sea star, gobies, wrasse. Ron Shimek explains in detail how DSB works and how to construct one here http://www.ronshimek.com/deep_sand_beds.html
