Should I clean my sand?

[clownfishowner225]

I recently bought a new 13.5 nano tank and forgot to rinse the live sand before adding it. The tank does settle and becomes clear, and once and a while I’ll stir it up in the tank to get the filter to clean what it can. I’m wanting to know if I have to take all the sand out and rinse it, or if it will be fine if I leave it becuase it does settle?

 

[NowGlazeIT]

My point is if you buy "live sand" rinsing it defeats the purpose and you just paid for nothing - I suppose there are various levels of rinsing. I added "live sand" in my tank at first because well...it made sense. It cleared up and had no sand related issues without rinsing - clouded up for a day and cleared up.
Since then, like you I've been added 2-5mm crushed coral (dry). I rinse that because yeah, why add fine particulate when it serves no purpose.

If I start over, I doubt I go with 'live sand'. I don't have anything against it, and if someone wants to use it, fine I see no issues as it's a fine product. But I personally don't see any value over dry sand and I like the size choices more.

100% if you paid more for the water weight and bacteria then use what you bought.
So if the owner still wanted to rinse it I would say break out the vac and fire up those water changes.
It’s an inside job now

 

[BostonReefer300]

I would normally say don’t rinse the sand. You really don’t need to because it will become clear as you siphon and stir it…

BUT your tank is pretty small and brand new. Rinsing your sand can be pretty beneficial because you are going to have crystal clear sand when you stir it in the future.

90% of people don’t rinse their live sand. You technically aren’t supposed to and I didn’t and I added 300 pounds of it. But if you have the time, go for it.

honestly, with siphoning you sandbed with water changes, it will be clear without needing to manually rinse. It all depends on how much effort you want to put in. Not rinsing and rinsing will give you the same end result.

For the people that say tap kills bacteria…I don’t think so. First, unless you are buying ocean direct sand, this sand was already dried and sifted from the ocean. The company manually adds a dormant bacteria which is not the same bacteria that you will later develop.

And tap doesn’t kill bacteria regardless. If so, we would wash our hands with tap and not use soap. Also, I dipped my rocks in bleach and left them to dry for a week and they were STILL alive! I found a Xenia coral growing on it and I didn’t add any Xenia.

All in all, I wouldn’t waste my time, but being that your tank is so small and manageable, it wouldn’t hurt if you want immediate results.

I agree with @Miami Reef. You've got a small, brand new tank with no rocks in it yet. You could've removed the sand, rinsed it (I suggest using a fine mesh filter sock---not felt), and put it back in already in the space of an hour. I also agree with others who wouldn't waste money buying live sand---just my opinion though

 

[Quietman]

if you paid more for the water weight and bacteria then use what you bought.
So if the owner still wanted to rinse it I would say break out the vac and fire up those water changes.
It’s an inside job now

That's the other thing I was going to add, but hard to communicate to new people to hobby. No one here can really tell you 100% that rinsing or not rinsing will be a huge difference. Now I think I'm in the 95-99% range when I say it won't matter and I don't usually comment unless I feel that level of confidence (and if not, I state that I'm "guessing here").

But for the OP. If you're going to worry when you have GHA or diatoms or any one of the many issues that we all face that it's because you didn't rinse your sand....the rinse your sand while it's early. It isn't worth losing sleep over and it's your tank. Either way you go falls within good tank husbandry so no one's going to say it's wrong (we do get a little more emphatic if we think you're going to go down a bad road)..maybe just unneccessary but that's us and not you.

 

[brandon429]

Does my decade old sand bed actually nitrify? Who eats Ammonia in our tanks?

Key points: My system is capable of removing ammonia quickly: ~4ppm/day total ammonia-Nitrogen (TAN) The sand processes ammonia slowly: ~0.1-0.2ppm/day TAN meaning the other 95+% happens somewhere else The tank water itself also has detectable ammonia processing: ~0.05ppm/day TAN [Tank water...

www.reef2reef.com

just to add more weight to the link/linkless claims ratio


from the chemistry forum: how important are sandbed bacteria, and, can you even prove they're handling filtration?

That becomes the second large work thread to discredit current claims being made here


for sure dont click it, just add in unfounded claims and we'll be on page ten quickly with no links past page 2.

Lots of folks skip disease preps with fish, and recommend that to others. hows that working out in the fish disease forum? If you want the best reefing info, take what works for one with a grain of salt, they may not even be telling the whole truth (like when they buy replacement fish lost to disease, and not tell anyone, and still recommend skipping disease preps to all new keepers)

When dealing with multi page work threads, you tend to get the truth as entrants are slanted to reporting bad outcomes over good ones.

this thread will have zero work links other than the ones provided by page ten, and the fifteen links on page one showing unresolved clouding will be ignored by those who deal in ones vs many examples.

 

[Rick's Reviews]

I am still new to this forum and sometimes the answers can be overwhelming so please do not be put off

If your sand settles then I'm sure it's no problem, whilst you are stirring it up then all you are doing is removing the finer particles of your sand

 

[brandon429]

Algae/Cyano Issue Not Improving, Help Please?

Hi all, I have a Red Sea Reefer 250 that has been up and running for 8 months now. My issue is a strange black algae\cyano growth that has plagued me for the last two months+. I have been treating as follows: cleaning gravel twice weekly 20% water changes twice a week Addition of beneficial...

www.reef2reef.com

what we did to the sand there: was not very nice.

quite powerful though right