Live sand?

[Lumberchick]

Ok.. So I am a total novice at this... Posted once before. I have a 90 gallon that I will be setting up this weekend. I have an RO Filter, over 100 lbs of live rock (sitting in salt water in a plastic garbage can outside my house). I will be using a sump and protein skimmer (instead of the fluval and eheim that came with the tank). I have the T5 Lighting... and a mag 9.5. (which I will most certainly be posting questions about because I just found out I needed one and have no idea what its for, where it goes and which hoses go where, etc).

So here is my most recent dilemma. I bought "live" sand from Petco (it was dry) and put it in a smaller tank (55 gallon because that is what I originally was going to start my saltwater tank from until I started pricing things out and realized it would be cheaper if I bought someones complete setup)....
I used tap water (thinking I could make saltwater from the tap) and filled the tank. But since then I have been reading up on "live sand" and read that if the sand is dry it it not live? When I went to the pet store and told them what I had done with my sand they had told me, I probably killed off the bacteria and the sand was no longer live or good and to throw it out and start fresh. Someone else told me that live sand is like live rock and that it would eventually become live again?? I am so confused. I now have all this sand in a bucket... not sure if I need to throw it out or just add a little bit of "live sand" (wet) to bring it back to life? Does anyone have any input in this? Thanks so much and please be patient with me!!

BTW... When I fill my tank this weekend.. I will only be putting in live rock and sand.. I will not be putting fish anytime soon... maybe just some frags...because I am super excited!!

 

[pyithar]

there's no reason to throw away the sand which is not even used yet. you can use the sand. beneficial bacteria will grow on everything in the tank including the sandbed over time. if you want to have micro and macro organisms, you just need to "seed" it using a cup or two of sand from the sandbed of a mature tank. eventually you'll have live sand.

btw, cycle your tank first before adding any livestock. good luck.

 

[Lumberchick]

When you say "sand bed of a mature tank" can I take it from a bag of wet sold at store? Or an actual scoop or two of sand from someone else's tank?

 

[acabgd]

He meant from another established tank. As said before, do not add any frags before you cycle your tank.

 

[pyithar]

yes what i meant was an actual scoop or two from another established tank.

 

[cidbozek]

With the temps and no water movement your rock is not live anymore either. Rinse both in ro water and put them into the tank with new saltwater and that scoop of live sand. Score a nice piece of live rock to help seed and let the fun begin

 

[ca1ore]

Live sand typically comes in sealed bags and is wet. I don't see how dry sand could be 'live'. Frankly though, live sand is a big old waste of money anyhow. Rinse the dry sand well and use it with some live rock (or a combination of dry and live rock) and cycle your tank that way - once it has cycled, it will all be live. No other livestock until it has cycled though.

 

[OnceTrueFalseBr]

I slways wondered if there was an expiration on live sand. Wont the bacteria run out of food sitting on a shelf?

 

[skeeter_ca]

You need to hook everything up, fill it with fresh ro water and turn the pump on before you put anything in it. Make sure it is all working properly. The Mag pump goes down in the sump to pump water back up to the tank. There should be a drain pipe to drain back down to the sump. Water drains into one side of the sump and the pump on the opposite end pumps it back into the tank. After everything is working properly add salt to the system slowly to bring it up to 1.026 on your hydrometer.

Only then can you add your rock and sand. Rinse the rock off thoroughly with fresh RO water and carefully place in your tank arranging it the way you want it. Rinse small portions of the sand a lot in a bucket, frequently changing the water and add a layer about 1" thick on the bottom of the tank. To minimize cloudiness use a funnel with a hose to slide the sand to the bottom.

Turn the pump back on and let everything settle for a couple of days. Yeah I know you are excited but you have to take it slow. You don't have to seed the rock or the sand if you don't want to. There will still be some bacteria on it and it will feed off any dying organic matter on the rocks and grow quickly

Next you start testing. You do have a test kit right? You need to first start testing for ammonia and nitrite. You will see ammonia start rising and then nitrite then ammonia should start dropping and then nitrite will start dropping. At this point your nitrates will start rising. All this will happen over a period of weeks, perhaps3 or 4 weeks. DO NOT PUT ANY ANIMALS IN THE TANK DURING THIS TIME.

When and only when ammonia and nitrite has gone to zero you can add some cleanup crew. Like turbo snails, nassarius snails, a cucumber, some brittlestars, and maybe a few crabs but you have to be careful with them.

Let them do there job for awhile before you get your first fish or coral. I know you are excited but if you do it right it will be even better than you think.

Just my nickels worth,
skeeter

 

[skeeter_ca]

Some basic's......

Once nitrates start to rise you want to test frequently to see how high they are going. Once they start to get to about 20 you should start doing water changes to keep them low.

You didn't mention any other equipment. Do you have extra powerheads in the tank for circulation. If so then make sure they are turned on after you put in the rock and sand. If you don't I would suggest you look into getting some. Jebao has some cool powerheads on ebay for a good price.

Do a lot of reading on this forum and don't take anyone persons word as gospel. Average out what everyone is saying and you will start getting an idea of what advise is good and what is bad.

good luck,
skeeter

 

[Lumberchick]

Whew! Thank you everyone!! Yes I do have a power head and I also have UV sterilization. I was told to make the water and add salt BEFORE putting in tank. The way I pictured doing it was filling my tank with sand, then making water (one bucket at a time with a heater to warm the water) and siphoning in one bucket or so at a time. Then letting the tank run for 24 hrs before adding my rock. Again although I am excited about adding the livestock, I didn't plan on doing it anytime soon. I did want to add a frag or two but if it will not survive this process I can wait.

 

[skeeter_ca]

A frag will not survive the cycle so just wait on that for now.

You are correct, usually you always want to mix your salt outside the tank. I recommended filling the tank with just fresh R/O water first so you can make sure everything is setup and working properly before wasting any salt just incase you have to drain it to fix or change something, which happens all the time. It is also alot easier than filling buckets and lugging them over to the tank and pouring them in. Just run an extra line to the tank from the R/O machine until it is full. Some people use tap water to test everything out and then drain and refill it with fresh water or premixed saltwater so they won't be wasting the R/O water if they have to drain it. Once everything is hooked up and working properly add the salt to the water in the bare tank with lots of circulation pointed at the bottom to keep the salt stirred up until it disolves. After the salinty and temperature is correct you can add the rock and sand. Guess it doesn't really matter which you add first if you are going with a shallow sand bed. Some people like to add the rock first that way it is sitting on the bottom of the tank and won't shift around as it settles in the sand. If you go with my method you may want to leave the sump a little low because as you add the rock and sand the tank will displace that water and the level in the sump will rise. If you have it high to start you will have to remove some as you add the rock and sandm which is harder than just adding some. Just make sure you reset the water level to the normal full mark once all the sand and rock are in.

Isn't this a blast!

skeeter

 

[Lumberchick]

Thanks for all the info! I will try and post progress