old live sand in used tank

[montanabay]

Hi,

Starting up a used tank that has been cyclying for a few years, the previous owner left his live sand it for with a little water to keep it wet. My question is, can I add water and live rock to this and let it cycle or should I clean the sand some how? If so, how do you clean "old" live sand? I imagine the little creatures that once lived in the sand are now dead and will provide the ammonia and possibly enough start up seed to have a cycling tank in a week or two?

Many thanks,

Josh

[TekCat]

IMHO, if creatures are dead, then it has very little value; get new sand.

[Jocko]

LOL. Have you priced out aragonite sand lately? There's your value!

Josh, you COULD just set up the tank on that existing sand bed, but it would probably take months (or longer) before it stopped affecting your water quality.

You are going to want to remove all the sand and put it in buckets. You can start by just rinsing it with a garden hose and stirring it up until it runs clear. Before putting it back in the tank, you'd want to rinse it with RO/DI water since who knows what was in that unfiltered hose water.

Not sure how much sand we're talking about here, but aquarium sand is expensive! Once you're set up then you can just seed it with a little live sand from someone.

[TekCat]

Jocko, I agree sand is a bit pricey. 40 lbs bag is around $40. I'd rather use all extra money on frags :)

However, IMHO, new sand is very good investment. Comparing to all the filtration equipment (skimmers, reactors, media, etc...) cost it is quite modest. With clean sand, you'd be better off knowing that there is nothing leaking from your sand bed back to the tank.

If you do decide to reuse old sand, boiling it in water might help some junk to get loose and float up.

good luck