live or dry sand

[El Camaron]

i will be starting my upgrade and transfer this weekend and was wondering if i should get two 20 pound bags of live sand or stick with a 30 pound of dry sand.

 

also, the live sand bags i have seen at a few stores have a green film inside, is that good or bad?

 

thanks for any help

[steveoutlaw]

I would go with dry sand, but rinse it really well before you put it in. Then take the sand from your other tank and just lay it on top. This will seed the dry stuff and you'll be on your way. Plus, you're putting in live rock so it should also help with critters.

 

That live sand is just a gimick in my opinion.

[El Camaron]

well i was told to not use all the sand from my current tank, but that i can scoop a few cups of it to see the new one. can the sand be rinsed with regular water or does it have to be RO?

[droyal1110]

From how I understood it, live sand isn't exactly live. I mean there may be some life still gettnig it in those bags but who knows how long they have been sealed and what their definition of live is. But anyways the way I saw it was the living or already dead organisms in that sand is perfect for cycling a tank. Considering you buy live rock to help cycle your tank, you're actually buying the die off the will help kick off the whole ammonia to nitrite to nitrate etc process. So if you're upgrading I would go with dry sand, its what I did, and I didn't have a cycle.

 

I also recommend the following for a transfer:

 

1. Make lots of water, more than you think you need because you'll probably need it

2. Get help - its tiring it be at weird angles all day and especially if you are transfering a distance

3. Use established tank water - I used water from my 55 when transfering and I even got water change water from lanman on here to help promote stablity and what not

4. Use established live rock - Take the live rock from your tank and quickly stick it in buckets full of tank water, then put it in your new tank (already pre-filled) The idea behind that is the beneficial bacteria is already established on the rock, as soon as you expose it to air some of it will automatically die off, you want to minimize the amount of die off as much as possible because this is what leads to a cycle. Plus the established rock + water should be able to take care of the minimal amounts of potential ammonia etc.

5. Leave the base rock (rock touching the sand) for last when removing things - it will create a sand storm and you don't want to transfer the dirty water/ make catching livestock harder/ could release destructive gasses from the sand

6. Drain water as you go - drain until you get to the top of your live rock, remove a couple pieces into the buckets you drained your water into, drain some more. Again it makes catching fish a lot easier with less places for them to go.

7. Towels are you friends.

8. Set aside a lot of time for this, pick a weekend where you know you have nothing going on and start early. Again start making water the day before.

 

I hope this helps, I'm sorry if this is irrelevant to you but I wish someone told me all of this when I was doing my transfer. Any questions feel free to ask, I did my transfer over 30 miles, about 18 hours, from a 55 gallon to a 90 gallon with a 30 gallon sump.

[steveoutlaw]

You are going from a solana to a 70g right? You can use most of the sand from the solana. I've transferred tanks where I've used the entire sandbed without rinsing it and didn't have any problems, so putting the sand from a 34 in to seed a 70g should be fine. Just make sure you put the sand from the Solana on top of the new sand.

 

As for rinsing, I just use the outside hose water.

Edited November 5, 2009 by steveoutlaw

[droyal1110]

Oh yea I also forgot, depending on how old the sand in your current tank is should tell you whether or not to use it.

 

If your tank is like a 1year + old, I would just scoop the top and use it to seed your new sand. You could rinse it using the garden hose and I would do a really good job, but then I would soak it and rinse it vigoursly (couple days of agitation) in RO water, simply to reduce the chances of it leeching TDS into your new tank.

[El Camaron]

thanks guys, yeah i am only going from the 34 to a 70 and its going form one side of my living room to the other, maybe about 7 steps lol, it would be cool to get water change water, that would certainly help a lot. i will ask to see if anyone has some.

[droyal1110]

Yea I just posted in the classifieds section on here and people replied when they were doing a waterchange and when I could come get it.

 

I also made sure they never dosed copper, what their parameters were, RO vs tap water, etc.