sand bed questions

[mr_X]

i have a 3-4" sand bed right now, and i never vaccuum it. never more than 10 nitrates, usually less, and i feed heavily. i have many things living in the sand, including, but not limited to, alot of sand dwellers i purchased (nassirus snails, 1 tigertail cucumber, which has become 2 tigertails, probably 1000 bristleworms. 8O ...). i'm breaking down the tank soon, but i was wondering.....do you think that sand bed is a time bomb, or helpful?

and secondly, i'm moving everything to a new tank which has a brand new 2" sand bed right now. i have a cc/sand mix in the existing tank. is it worth it for me to sift the sand in my old tank and put it in the new tank?
it's certainly live sand, but do you all think it's going to unleash some serious toxins once i stir it up?

and lastly, what about all of my sand dwellers who rely on eating what's in the sand bed? if i put them in the new tank, will they starve to death?
should i start removing sand now and start transferring some of it so there will be food them?

 

[DaFrog]

Related question: Where could I get bristleworms to put in my sand bed?

 

[bleedingthought]

Related question: Where could I get bristleworms to put in my sand bed?

Your live rock.

 

[bleedingthought]

i have a 3-4" sand bed right now, and i never vaccuum it. never more than 10 nitrates, usually less, and i feed heavily. i have many things living in the sand, including, but not limited to, alot of sand dwellers i purchased (nassirus snails, 1 tigertail cucumber, which has become 2 tigertails, probably 1000 bristleworms. 8O ...). i'm breaking down the tank soon, but i was wondering.....do you think that sand bed is a time bomb, or helpful?

and secondly, i'm moving everything to a new tank which has a brand new 2" sand bed right now. i have a cc/sand mix in the existing tank. is it worth it for me to sift the sand in my old tank and put it in the new tank?
it's certainly live sand, but do you all think it's going to unleash some serious toxins once i stir it up?

and lastly, what about all of my sand dwellers who rely on eating what's in the sand bed? if i put them in the new tank, will they starve to death?
should i start removing sand now and start transferring some of it so there will be food them?

X, I'd go with about 2" of sand instead in the new tank. More sand more potential for problems, I feel, and more sand to be moved around by the flow. But I do like the look of sand so I'd say stay around 2" or so. I also don't see the need or don't like the looks of crushed coral.

Seed your new sand with a couple of cup fulls of your aged one. I'd also pull all the snails, cucumbers, and larger stars you might have you can and put it in the new tank. The worms will come with time. I'd either sell or trade the rest of the sand you don't use.

That's what I'd do.

 

[mr_X]

thanks. but what about my sand dwellers who depend on my yummy established sand bed right now? should i just throw them in the brand new sand with a couple cups of yummy sand and hope for the best?

 

[brandonberry]

I've re-used sand beds several times and this is what I did:

First I would remove the old sand from the tank about a 1/2 of a 5g bucket full at a time. I would then fill the rest of the bucket w/ old tank water and stir it vigorously until the sand fluidized. Once it settled back down I would pour off the water and detritus and repeat once or twice more.

If adding new sand to the new tank as well I would first rinse it with old tank water and then add this to the tank first. Then I topped it off with the old sand and slightly kneaded the two together keeping the majority of the old sand on top and the new sand on the bottom. After filling the tank I usually noticed new worms starting to dig into the bottom layer of sand within about 2 weeks. Within a month there wer enough worms to give it the appearance of a well established sand bed.

My reason for doing it this way is beacause I felt that some critters needed to be removed to prevent excess dieoff from the drastic change in the sand bed. I also felt that if I buried critters that would normally be found near the surface of the sand at the bottom when I moved it that I would surely have some dieoff there. By placing the old sand on top, the critters could slowly dig down into the bottom layers oxygenating it as they go.

 

[cindre2000]

I recently overhauled a shallow sand bed on a 125 and it was not pretty. The biggest issue is there was a HUGE amount of sediment and silt. I pretty much removed all the rock (scrubbed it) and removed all the fish. I then just started vacuuming all that crud out of the sand bed. Took me about 50g of water changes to get about 75% (in my estimation) of the crud out. I tossed in additional sand, some new rock with the old rock, tunze nano streams, and replaced the lights and the tank looks beautiful.

Biggest thing I would say is if you want to keep 'most' of the sand bed you just need to take all the rock and animals out and have plenty of fresh saltwater to do a whole lot of vacuming. You could also sift out all the detritus with a fine mesh (fish net) and that is what I use to collect some of the live sand rubble out of the live rock tank at work.

 

[mr_X]

ok. so, do you guys think i should take some of my old sand with me or not? :?

 

[mr_X]

Related question: Where could I get bristleworms to put in my sand bed?

i would gladly mail you some if you like. i have a staggering amount.

 

[DaFrog]

That would be wonderful - I'll PM you

 

[bleedingthought]

ok. so, do you guys think i should take some of my old sand with me or not? :?

A little bit.

 

[brandonberry]

A lot. LOL. I promise I have done it at least 5 times the way I mentioned above and have always had great success. Detritus will be mostly gone, the rinsing makes hydrogen sulfide a non-issue, and GFH phosphate remover can be run in your tank if you are worried about phosphate leaching.