Moveing a live sand bed

[homestead]

Looking for advice on the best way to move an established reef (mainly the sand bed) from a 20g long tank to a 46g tank. Should the sand be rinsed in salt water to remove detritus, or should i just move the sand from one tank to the other. The 20g only has about a 2" sand bed in it ,but it is full of sps and lps, and i want to transfer everything from the 20 to the 46. I dont want to rinse it because i will probaly lose a lot of my sand critters, but my gut feeling is to rinse it to remove any detritus and any harmful bacteria (if any,sand is only 2"deep) that has built up at the bottom of the sand bed. Im going to put close to 50 lbs of esv's fine sand in the 46g tank first ,and then the live sand from the 20g on top. Im going to use the water from the 20g, and probaly some from my 100g sps tank. I have no room in my 100g , so the corals will have to be put in the 46 right after it is set up

 

[Anonymous]

From what I have read it is not a good thing to move a sand bed.

What I am doing is in my new tank I have used Southdown and made a 4 inch bed. I added about 20 gallons of saltwater and some frozen shrimp.

Now that the tank has cycled I will take the top inch of my existing sandbed and seed the new bed. I will disguard the rest of the sand from the old tank.

I will be moving all of my LR, Water from my old 46 to my new 58.

I hope this helps.
_________________
Ultram Rehab Forum

 

[King Jason]

I'll need to do something like this as well. I currently have about 100p of LS in my 60g tank and want to use it in my new 190g's sump. I was going to put it into a heated and circulated trash can for about 2 weeks while the new tank is getting it's final setup. I really don't want to just throw 100 pounds of LS away.

 

[Freedom75@work]

I have moved sandbeds in three different takes with no problems. I always make sure I take out the water I want and leave at least 1/5 of the watter in there . I removed the sand and put it in a new bucket. I usually take almost all of the sand once I have it all in bucket I will pour our and additional water and move the sand into my new take. I usually use some playsand to help suppliment the sand I am moving . I also really like the araga-live products that you ccan buy. but as Far as I am concerned you should not have any problems

John Wray

 

[MaryHM]

Here's my experience:

http://www.reefsource.com/MSI%20Article ... nd_bed.htm