live sand and rock question please advise

[jasdavis09]

I have a 45 gal bow front with 40-45 pounds of live rock and 20-25 pounds of live sand. I had to take my tank down to have new carpet installed. The tank sat in my garage and I filterd the live rock in a 60 gal trash can with a fulval hoked up to it. The water in the can was about 60-65 degres when I put it back together about 6 weeks latter. the live sand stayed in my tank also in the garage, however it never dried out all the way. I would like to know if my sand and rock is still alive or did I just waist alot of money? Thanks for the help

 

[iCam]

I would guess that most life on/in the rock and sand is dead due to being in lower temperatures. But, life should eventually come back, especially if you add more rock or seed with some live sand. Do you have any livestock in the tank? Have you checked your water parameters?

 

[jasdavis09]

I took what lil live stock back to lfs b4 the removal. The watter checked out fine so far. How much more live rock and sand would you sugest?

 

[iCam]

How long has the tank been set back up?

 

[jasdavis09]

the tank has been back up for 2 weeks I guess I could remove all the live rock and replace the sand. since I have found this site I have new intrest in making this tank work so I want to make sure I do it right

 

[iCam]

Well, it would probably be easier to replace the sand, and now would be the time to do it. You can seed with existing sand in hopes that something survived, bacterial or other.

If you can get some live sand from a fellow tank keeper or an LFS, you can seed the new sand with that to start up the bacterial and invertebrate populations in the sand and live rock. Your tank will probably go through a cycle, and once all parameters have stabilized where they should be, you can start adding livestock.

 

[jasdavis09]

so by seeding you meen ad a small amount of new live sand to the existing sand? I plan on ading some more live rock to finish my rock scape would that work? how much sand and/or live rock would you recomend?

 

[iCam]

Seeding with live sand basically means adding a bit of sand from an existing tank to up your biodiversity in the sand.

Do you think you are going to replace the sand, or just stick with the sand that's already in there? The amount of rock you have in there sounds fine . If you add more, it will possibly cycle the tank faster.

 

[jasdavis09]

I dont know I am looking in to buying some used equipment from a fellow reefer in town maybe I can get some sand from him, that sure sounds alot cheaper and easer to me as long as it will work for my tank thats what I will do Ill prob ad about 10 more pounds of lr.