I'm glad you're posting your experience with the bagged LS; I have an unopened bag that I bought recently for my tank. But, after reading this, I'm wondering if it would be better for me to take it back to my LFS and opt for the dry stuff.
Again, looking great and please continue keeping us up to date!
If you read the Zeo forum, you'll find that they advise not to get bagged Livesand; they even go as far as to state that you will get algae problems.
It makes sense to me because you have no idea where the sand was collected and what debris/seaweed/tiny bits of abraded driftwood etc etc and other coastal material. I bet they dont rinse the sand out until its free of those things. They then probably add some form of bacterial culture and a source of food for the bacteria to keep the bacteria alive.
I used to retain stock bacterial cultures in small vials for my university biolab. Every 6 weeks we had to refresh the vials.
Imagine in a airtight bag, sand, water (and stuff I mentioned above), how long can the stuff really stay alive?
Also, temperature at the LFS probably kills off the bacteria in a matter of weeks...
I honestly should have known better. But, having said that I did make this thread and ask about how to get the cleanest sand:
http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1923300
If I were you, I'd do the following in ALL future tank setups:
1. SAND: Use dry sand. Wash the heck out of it with plenty of RO water. Once you are sure it is washed quite well, put all of it in a vat of RO/DI water. Test for phosphates. If its leaching anything higher than 0.03ppm just do a quick rinse and replace all the RO/DI water again. This will ensure the sand is more or less free of crap that can later cause problems.
2. ROCKS: Regardless of where the rocks come from ie completely fresh Liverock or cured Liverock etc, I'd store the rocks in a vat for two weeks. During those two weeks every 3 days I'd setup at least 3 buckets of saltwater. Scrub and inspect the rocks for pest. Then dunk/swish the rock in 1st bucket them 2nd and 3rd etc. You will be amazed at the amount of detritus that comes out.
3. TANK CYCLE: Once the rocks and sand have been cleaned as above, place both in tank as required. Test the water for nitrates and ESPECIALLY phosphates. Use aggressive Carbon dosing (ie Vodka etc) to drop Nitrate to less than 5ppm and Phosphate to less than 0.03ppm. If the vodka dosing system become nitrates limited and you cant get phosphates lower then use GFO aggressively.
With no corals in the tank, aggressive vodka/GFO dosing isnt going to cause RTN etc.
Once those parameters are good, then carry out a few large water changes, test alk, ca etc etc and add a fish or two and a few hardy SPS frags.
In any future tank setups I will follow something similar to above. Currently I am on my 4th reef setup and I wish I'd done this for this tank. But certainly I will never setup a future tank without doing the above.
Thanks again for the advice. :thumbsup:
