What about the 8 year old sand?

SeaTila

SeaTila

New member
I'm moving a 120g to 200g. The new tank will have new live sand, but what about the old sand? I've already moved most of the live rock and haven't moved the inhabitants BUT I noticed a live clam in the sand bed. There's likely a lot of snails, clams etc in the old sand. Any ideas about pulling out the good little buddies without bringing over anything bad. I'm guessing I would be surprised what would be left behind. I'm shutting this old tank off when I'm done. I'll be replacing the old tank with a new 60g and maintaining two systems with one 30g QT. I have to break down this old tank since it is sitting where the 60g will go. I dont have any known issues with existing sand...no pests that I'm aware of, but everyone seemed to recommend new live sand as precaution for the new DT. -S

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Yeah, use new live sand. What I did when I moved from my 20 to my 40... I had some snails in the sand, so I tossed a bit of food in to draw them out and caught as many as I could.

This next part was easy for a 20...but you have a lot more sand... I just removed some sand into a bucket a little at a time (enough to find the snails easily) and sifted through it, keeping the good guys and tossing the rest. Repeated until I went through the tank.

Hope it helps a bit!
 
I would recommend new DRY sand, not live. Dry sand is less expensive since you are not paying for old rancid saltwater, much easier to clean since you can just use tap water and a garden hose to remove the fines (dust) where as you need to rinse with saltwater to rise live sand. Live sand often has more dead than live organics in it and offers little or no value over dry sand.
 
If you can, sift it with something bigger like 1/8" mesh (I have scraps of the BRS stuff that come in handy for the oddest things). Otherwise it seems like you have a slow process ahead of you.

You can use the old sand but be sure to really wash it well. For the hassle, it's not worth it to a lot of folks and they just pitch the old stuff.
 
What's the status of your 120? Is everything ok, are you having any algae problems? If not, you might want to siphon out the top 1/4" or so and set this aside in an ice chest with some water. Remove the rest of the sand and give it a good rinse with the hose. Once it's clean go ahead and add it to the 200. Place the live sand from the ice chest on top of that.
Being that sand is extremely easy to remove if things decide to go south, there's really no need to spend any money on dry or live sand IMO. Just see how it goes for awhile. GL.
 
I have the live new sand in new tank. Nothing wrong with old tank...just noisy and high maintenance. I dont want to use the sand but was wondering if anyone tries to get the good guys out of old sand using buckets or strainers or some cool method I haven't thought of. I am sure theres tons of living snails and clams etc.

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Animagus said:
What's the status of your 120? Is everything ok, are you having any algae problems? If not, you might want to siphon out the top 1/4" or so and set this aside in an ice chest with some water. Remove the rest of the sand and give it a good rinse with the hose. Once it's clean go ahead and add it to the 200. Place the live sand from the ice chest on top of that.
Being that sand is extremely easy to remove if things decide to go south, there's really no need to spend any money on dry or live sand IMO. Just see how it goes for awhile. GL.
Click to expand...
The old tank and sand is in good condition. No complaints...everything living...so its a shame to kill off everything. I can leave the tank running for a while...is there a snail catcher or a tool like the vacuum to separate out organisms from sand?

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I have used a plastic kitchen colander for what you are trying. Depends on the size of the sand grains. I hate to kill anything, even worms and pods, so i go to a lot of trouble to pick them out. I am about to try this on a larger scale. Recently bought a huge colander at a restaurant supply store.
 
jeperry3 said:
I have used a plastic kitchen colander for what you are trying. Depends on the size of the sand grains. I hate to kill anything, even worms and pods, so i go to a lot of trouble to pick them out. I am about to try this on a larger scale. Recently bought a huge colander at a restaurant supply store.
Click to expand...
Ive moved everything today over to new tank and old tank is running with only sand. I was thinking of using a tool like https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B00L...C_UL100_SR100,52_&refRID=Z8ZWJQRM6HHDWN3W1DZN

I found a patent description filed for a tool to strain sand and it mentioned a cat litter scooper....so I started looking at scoopers. Ideally I would a more auto way like how gold is shaken out of dirt and you can just add sand at one end...was looking for something like a kitchen aid mixer attachment but didn't find anything useful yet. I like the idea of a scooper or bucket with pump going to separate out critters if that works...all just ideas though.

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