General Discussion - Moving a sand bed

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Moving a sand bed

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Topic: Moving a sand bed

Posted By: rufessor
Subject: Moving a sand bed
Date Posted: November 23 2011 at 9:11am

Hi Everyone-

I am hoping to be able to move to my new tank this Friday... if I can get a noisy pump returned and buy a new Eheim 635 GPH pump today... so it may be delayed.

Here is the question, my existing pump is a BioCube 29 with about 2-3 inches of sand, actually, its about 0.5-4.5 inches depending on where the bulldozer (pistol shrimp) has moved it. The tank is almost exactly 1 year old. My plan is to use a new slightly more coarse sand and Puka sand (lots of shells) in the new tank, so the shrimp will have more stable burrows... and move most of the BioCube sand bed to the cheato chamber in the sump of my new tank, about 3 inches deep. So this way I can have a great pod hatchery/cheato chamber.

So, given that a lot of the sand is continuously stirred, I am thinking I should be more or less OK. But, I have never gravel vacuumed and there are parts of the aquarium the shrimp has not stirred up (say 40% well mixed). Would you be worried??? Will be running a big bag of Carbon, fuge light 24/7, skimmer on high etc during first week post move... I could take the parts I know to be mixed and move those live into the sump and sprinkle into tank, and then rinse the heck out of the rest in fresh water (total kill of bio mass) and add back to tank to fill it up, I dont need it all for the sump, so this may be the safe good way to do this.

Experience?

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Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler -A.E.
57 Gallon RImless build in progress check the thread before if becomes boring and just full of nice pictures of colorful coral!

Replies:

Posted By: cmavi
Date Posted: November 23 2011 at 9:24am

I have done this in the past with no problem. I would say moving sand from one tank into another within your house is not a big deal. I recently moved my 120G and took all the sand out and put it back in without rinsing it and everything is ok. I will be careful and try not to stir up the sand when adding water, I usually put a big dinner plate on the sand and dump my water in.

Posted By: jcoulter17
Date Posted: November 23 2011 at 10:40am

I moved my 210g tank and took 8 hours to do and I used the same sand without rinsing

Posted By: rufessor
Date Posted: November 23 2011 at 10:52am

Ok. So no worries. I will use all the sand I can get out. Maybe throw a gallon or two of salt and swirl up the last inch and pull sand out with a strainer just to be extra cautious.

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Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler -A.E.
57 Gallon RImless build in progress check the thread before if becomes boring and just full of nice pictures of colorful coral!

Posted By: BobC63
Date Posted: November 23 2011 at 12:37pm

I'll be the opposing voice here.

What I would do is scoop out a cup or 2 of the old sand and put it aside, and then wash all the rest in freshwater.

My reasoning being that stirring up any of that stuff may end up clouding your water in the new setup or even casuing a bacterial bloom. Keeping a couple of cups of old sand allows you to 'reseed' the just washed sand, and avoid the typical new tank type of spikes.

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- My Current Tank: 65g Starfire (sitting empty for 2+ years) -

* Marine & Reef tanks since 1977 *

Posted By: bur01014
Date Posted: November 23 2011 at 2:29pm

^^^ditto^^^....I think you'd be crazy to not get rid of the old sand or at least rinse it...just save a cup to seed....I've had several tank moves go bad due to old sand (>6 months) being stirred up....unless you want a larger cycle and some dino's I'd error on being cautious....

Posted By: Jeffatpm
Date Posted: November 23 2011 at 5:24pm

I've moved sand from a 90 to a 210, added new sand from other tanks at the same time, and didn't have a problem at all.

I pulled the sand out with a strainer and pulled it up and down a few times in the old water that was going to be thrown out anyway to avoid any overabundance. Worked great.

I wouldn't rinse the sand with freshwater as it is full of bio bacteria. IMO.

I imagine no matter what you do you will end up with a bacterial bloom, it's simply how big and if the bloom causes any problems.

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210 Reef with loads of LEDS
Large Fishey Room
Located Near Jordan Landing in West Jordan.

Posted By: rufessor
Date Posted: November 23 2011 at 5:33pm

I suspect all new sand is both an unnecessary expense and precaution... if you rinse in salt water the old sand to the point that there is no significant organic burden and barring it being significantly anaerobic. I think all new sand means throwing away a big notrogen sink. What I don't know is how much of the nitrogen reduction goes through the sand bed vs live rock. So to be cautious... I will try to save the nitrogen fixing BAC but rinse well.....

I think based upon my understanding and everyone's comments I will move a few cups of the cleanest best aereated part of the sand bed to mix with the 30 lbs of new very well rinsed with fresh water sand and puka shell mix. The rest wi be really well rinsed in salt water and added to the sump under the cheato. If I cannot rinse to my satisfaction it's in the trash or of it smells at all sulfur it's in the trash. I will post pics and results mostly in my tank thread but also here to some extent.

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Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler -A.E.
57 Gallon RImless build in progress check the thread before if becomes boring and just full of nice pictures of colorful coral!