Seeding New Sand with Old Sand

[Quang]

I'm thinking of switching tanks...this acrylic w/ its million small scratches is killing me.

So I want to swap out the sand as well.
a) How should I go about seeding the new sand? Lets say I add in about 3 lbs of old sand and try to seed 10 lbs of new sand, how long should it be before it's safe for me to switch tank inhabitants?
b) What would the new tank need while its being seeded? Lights? Water movement?

Some more info: I'm thinking of using about 50% old water from the tank and 50% newly made SW when I make the transfer. I'm not adding new livestock or rocks, every single thing will be transfer over. Any info is appreciated. Thanks

 

[nanoreefer22]

You can put the inhabitants in right away. The tank livestock should be fine. The 50% old water is cool, just make sure as always that you mix the new water as close to the old water as you can.

 

[bad coffee]

How deep and how old is your old sand? you may be able to use most of it for the new tank.

B

 

[Quang]

Its shallow sand bed Brett so I would say .5" deep over a 24"x8" foot print. I want to change my sand to black tahitian moon sand.

 

[Quang]

I just use the sand calculator on Reef Central. Right now I have only about 3-4 lbs of sand in my current tank (thats all?!) and I will only need about 7 lbs of sand for my new tank to make a 1" sandbed over a 16"x8" footprint.

 

[bad coffee]

Although I really dig the black sand, it's hard to keep clean.

You could put a cup of so of your old sand in a fine mesh bag (filter bag?) and put it in your tank. Some of the life will crawl out and seed the new sand. Or you could just put a scoop in and call it done.

B

 

[Quang]

Here's the new sand. About 10 lbs of it.

 

[nanoreefer22]

Sccchhhhweeetttt!!! Is it wet already?

 

[Quang]

The direction said it had to be rinsed... I used tap water :fishhit: :knockedou :sad2: :groupflip :bunnies: :division:

 

[masterswimmer]

froggie, that looks awesome bro. Can't wait to see it all up and running. Your gorgonians will look great against that.

swimmer

 

[Tonyscoots84]

u should ask wingo how to cook it lolz :joke: thats the best bet... i dont see of any other way of cleaning it without using tap water... my rodi water comes out to slow to clean anything...

Looks awesome....... ur getting rid of the desktop tank i guess...

 

[Quang]

ur getting rid of the desktop tank i guess...

I wouldn't put it as "getting rid"... but rather upgrading? :lol: :wink1:

 

[Tonyscoots84]

thats what i meant... :hug: well good luck with this one u def. had great success with the last one....

 

[masterswimmer]

Q, make a nice size tub of RO/DI, then put a Mag Drive in there and use that to pump the RO/DI into another pail with the sand. Not to difficult. Should work well. However, I've always rinsed with tap water

swimmer