moving tank to new house? new sand?

[flipteg]

i have a 30 gallon cube with about a 3" sand bed... if i move the tank to a new house, do you all recommend getting rid of the sand and get new sand...? i've been reading around how disturbing the sand too much in a move might be the culprit in a tank crash...

 

[Dubbin1]

I would just move it with the sand in it. If you don't want to do that then yes replace the sand bed but keep a couple cups of the old sand to seed the new sand with.

 

[Surfzup2k4]

I would just leave it in the tank and move it with the sand in it. Set the tank on a pillow or something when you go to set it down to help support the bottom while it's in the car.

 

[Dubbin1]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=6510007#post6510007 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Surfzup2k4
Set the tank on a pillow or something when you go to set it down to help support the bottom while it's in the car.

No you don't want to do that. It will add stress to the bottom of the tank and could cause it to break.

 

[lpkirby]

I agree with Dubbin, Keep the sand in it and when you move it put it on a flat surface so the bottom trim is supporting the weight not the bottom glass.

 

[Surfzup2k4]

And when it's sitting in the car, what is sitting there with the weight of all that sand on it unsupported? Oh yes, THE GLASS BOTTOM. The pillow acts to take the weight away and dampen the bouncing. With the pillow in place, it's just like the sand is sitting on the pillow with glass in between them. Do whatever you want, just goodluck with it.

 

[moose8721]

I say go with new sand. That's what I ended up doing for my move. Old sand is apparently pretty nasty below the surface and stirring it all up could add ammonia to the tank. Advice given to me by smarter people than myself....

But kep a couple cups of the old sand bed to seed your new sand...

 

[kbmdale]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=6535623#post6535623 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Surfzup2k4
And when it's sitting in the car, what is sitting there with the weight of all that sand on it unsupported? Oh yes, THE GLASS BOTTOM. The pillow acts to take the weight away and dampen the bouncing. With the pillow in place, it's just like the sand is sitting on the pillow with glass in between them. Do whatever you want, just goodluck with it.

Not good advice...Have you ever seen a flat pillow? Pillows have high and low spots and lumps. So your basically making the bottom glass adhear to any high spots in the pillow. Which will lead to a sure crack. Just support the bottom trim. The sand will not make any difference on the bottom glass, if it can't hold the sand without water then whats gonna happen when you add the water back.

 

[alten78]

did the same thing myself about a couple weeks ago. I tossed my sand during the move (kept some to seed new sb.) Unfortunately I forgot to buy new dry sand and my old man dumped the sand i was going to keep cuz he thought it was trash as he helped me move lol, so inadvertently I went bb...which i can't stand.

 

[zukihara]

I kept my sand when moving, didn't even rinse it due to time restraints (although I did not use the nastiest of nasty at the bottom). Tank had a fairly high bioload so I didn't want to be lacking for bacteria and planned on doing water changes asap.

My preference after that would be to lightly rinse it just get some of the crap out and then use that to retain as much bacteria as you can.
I think the crashing you might have read about would pertain to concerns people have when using a deep sand bed and generally 3' isn't considered a DSB.

You might want to look for threads on how to remove a DSB and go BB and how they did it and how they avoided any issues they were concerned with when removing the sand from their systems which pertains to your situation in several ways.