Manny Posted March 1, 2014 Share Posted March 1, 2014 Have any of you had any success transferring live sand from one tank to another? If so, how was the experience? How did you do it? I am debating whether to transfer my sand over or just go all out new sand. Let's hear your guys advice. Thanks in advance. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
subsea Posted March 1, 2014 Share Posted March 1, 2014 First off, I never throw sand away and buy new sand. The economics makes no sense to me. Healthy bacteria are valuable to keep. Minimize time in bucket. No matter how you reuse sand, the tank will have to cycle. Patrick Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Timfish Posted March 1, 2014 Share Posted March 1, 2014 I've reused live sand and I'll rinse it out by dumping it into a half full bucket of aquarium water to get rid of the detritus and gunk that builds up over time. There are times with older systems I'll go ahead and get new sand as there can be quite a build up of detritus and mulm over time and new sand will just look nicer but this varies from system to system. People have reported issues with old sand trapping phosphates and causing algae probelms when reused but I've never really looked into it myself to see if there is a measurable change in the phosphates in an aquarium when this is done. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Manny Posted March 1, 2014 Author Share Posted March 1, 2014 Patrick how do you usually transfer same from one aquarium to another? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Manny Posted March 1, 2014 Author Share Posted March 1, 2014 Either way (thanks for both of your responses) I am starting to lean more towards a pretty slow transfer. Thinking about allowing a 4 week cycle (more if needed) before adding my first fish. I will probably bring a pair of clowns over first. Not in too big of a hurry to where I will skip a cycle. I'm just oober excited that I finally got my upgrade home. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FarmerTy Posted March 1, 2014 Share Posted March 1, 2014 My preference is to not reuse sand. If you really want to, then do as Timfish mentioned and rinse it out with old tank water. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Grog Posted March 1, 2014 Share Posted March 1, 2014 Smell it when you take it out and ask yourself, "Does that need to go into my tank?" Your nose will tell you. Like others said, rinse it out if you want to reuse but it won't be very live after a thorough scrubbing. I'd keep at least a cup or two of the original in an unaltered state to reseed the 'new' sandbed. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Manny Posted March 2, 2014 Author Share Posted March 2, 2014 Man this is turning out to be a tougher decision than what I had originally thought it would be. It seems so many people are completely all for it while others will not even think about it. Let me put it this way, can you guys help me weigh the pro's and con's of doing so? I know bringing it over will help speed up my cycle and help stabilize my new tank a lot quicker being that I will bring over a ton of nitrifying bacteria but I also heard of the potential phosphate spikes due to excess nutrients. Can you guys tell me more about this? What all can go wrong from using this sand? Thanks guys. Sorry for my noobness. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
subsea Posted March 2, 2014 Share Posted March 2, 2014 Since you will be keeping both tanks operating, it is a no brainier. Set up your 75 with new sand in it. Cycle that tank with a couple of handfuls of mature substrate from your 29G system. I like using ammonia to cycle the bacteria. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Manny Posted March 2, 2014 Author Share Posted March 2, 2014 Well I want the old sand to be on bottom and the new sand to be on top. The new same is much prettier. I will eventually be breaking down the old one and just using it as a QT as needed. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Planeden Posted March 2, 2014 Share Posted March 2, 2014 I think you just summarized it well. The pros are the things you bring in: bacteria, stars, pods, worms...etc. the cons are the things you bring in: phosphate, poop, pests. If your tank is healthy and stable the benefits may out weigh the risks. It will make your tank cycle and stabilize faster. By stabilize I mean that immature tanks are less stable than mature ones. It's like trading for a cagey veteran as opposed to a rookie fresh out of school. Of course, whenever you severely disturb the sand (perhaps unless you vacuum deeply frequently) you will discombobulate everything and it may go haywire for a time. But the mature sand should work itself out shortly. If your tank is not healthy and stable, you probably won't get as many benefits. You may be bringing in parasites, phosphate, nitrates, whatever. If your parameters are currently not stable, then your biological filtration of your sand probably isn't so good anyway so you may want to start over. For me, I'd have to have a good reason for not reusing it. Any time I have moved a tank, I have never noticed any problems with it. Mostly that's been freshwater, though. I don't usually rinse it, either, as I'm worried about getting rid of the good hings I'm trying to transfer. It does get a good vacuuming as I'm taking all the water out, though. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FarmerTy Posted March 2, 2014 Share Posted March 2, 2014 Manny, your desire to have the new sand on top and the old sand on the bottom will be spoiled by your cleanup crew. Tried that once in an old 65-gal and regretted it for the two years I had that tank. Hopefully my experience can save you the same misery. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
subsea Posted March 2, 2014 Share Posted March 2, 2014 It would not be worth the extra work to transfer the sand. Plus both tanks would be out of balance at the same time.You would have to breakdown your stable tank and transfer everything to a tank requiring a cycle. Not a good scenario no matter how you look at it. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Manny Posted March 2, 2014 Author Share Posted March 2, 2014 Well I had thought about transferring the sand over in 3 different sessions and let that sit for a week or so after the last transfer. Then I wanted to add new and with dry rock. Then a few weeks later my live rock from my current system in sections as well. At this time I would start bringing the fish over a little at a time. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
subsea Posted March 2, 2014 Share Posted March 2, 2014 Well I had thought about transferring the sand over in 3 different sessions and let that sit for a week or so after the last transfer. Then I wanted to add new and with dry rock. Then a few weeks later my live rock from my current system in sections as well. At this time I would start bringing the fish over a little at a time. IMO, reusing the sand is not worthy the effort. The logistics require both tanks to be out of balance. This will result in stress. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FarmerTy Posted March 2, 2014 Share Posted March 2, 2014 I'm with Subsea. Removing the sand from your old tank would cause you to have two unstable tanks versus one solid one and one new one. I don't think the benefits of your old sand is worth the risk. When just as simply, you could seed the new sand with some of your old sand and get roughly the same result without destabilizing your current tank. The multiple removals of sand will just cause multiple mini cycles in both tanks. Regarding the live rock transfer, I had luck cycling the new rock with one piece of mature rock from my old tank. Once it was fully cycled (no ammonia or nitrite detections), I slowly moved over the mature rock from the old tank at a similar rate that I moved over the livestock. I feel it helped the new system cope with the increased bioload when I transferred some livestock and transferred some mature rock with additional denitrifying capability at the same time. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Planeden Posted March 2, 2014 Share Posted March 2, 2014 I'm jumping on board with Patrick and Ty. I didn't realize you were keeping the other tank running for a while. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Manny Posted March 2, 2014 Author Share Posted March 2, 2014 Well not wanting to keep it running but trying to do a slow transfer. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Planeden Posted March 2, 2014 Share Posted March 2, 2014 Tomātō / tomätō Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
subsea Posted March 3, 2014 Share Posted March 3, 2014 When your 75G system is started up, allow your refugium to be void of substrate. Once all livestock is removed from 29G, the 40 lbs of sand can be used in your refugium. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Manny Posted March 3, 2014 Author Share Posted March 3, 2014 I dont have a fuge but I have an extra 29G i could use to make a sump/refugium. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Manny Posted March 7, 2014 Author Share Posted March 7, 2014 I ordered more sand and will be using all new same on the new tank. I will use a Gio of the old stuff to seed it however. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Manny Posted March 10, 2014 Author Share Posted March 10, 2014 Wow i just noticed the typo here. Sorry. I think these smart phones lean more towards the dumb side of the scale than the smart. What I meant to say was that I will use a cup of the old stuff to seed all my new sand. I am going to stand aquascaping today and then throw some sand in. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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