Using old live sand?

The_Skrimp · Dec 21, 2020

Hey folks. So my tank is about 8 months old now and sand has started to settle, and some has been vacuumed out over time etc. I wanted to add little bit more sand on top of what I have in there to freshen it up. The thing is, I have half a bag of live sand left from 8 months ago when I started the tank. It’s bone dry now so I was wondering if I could just rinse and use this sand or if the die off from it no longer being live would cause any sort of ammonia spike?

thanks!

Jesse O. · Dec 21, 2020

The_Skrimp said:
Hey folks. So my tank is about 8 months old now and sand has started to settle, and some has been vacuumed out over time etc. I wanted to add little bit more sand on top of what I have in there to freshen it up. The thing is, I have half a bag of live sand left from 8 months ago when I started the tank. It’s bone dry now so I was wondering if I could just rinse and use this sand or if the die off from it no longer being live would cause any sort of ammonia spike?

thanks!

I've done this with my 15 gallon column saltwater tank. It's also established (over 5 years) and I added live sand to it since most of the sand had been sucked out. The difference with me is I used live sand that was still moist and I only added about 5 pounds. It worked great and looked awesome again too! My guess is for your case depending on how much you plan on adding; if you rinse it off good it should clean the sand of some or most of its impurities.