Putting live sand in fresh water

[fishgate]

I bought 160lbs of live sand for my 125g build. I really don't have a place to mix the water accept in the tank. Well unless I want to take 2 months to mix it in 5 gallon buckets - NOT. So I put the sand in the tank and am filling it with RO water as it is made. The tank will be full of water in 2 days. Meanwhile, will I kill off all or most of the bacteria in the sand using fresh water? I am not terribly concerned about this as I am going to leave the tank running at least a month before putting any livestock in it anyway but just curious.

BTW: This sand makes the water terribly cloudy (Caribsea). They bill this is live sand ready to put in but I can see it is going to take weeks for all the cloudiness to settle out.

[Sugar Magnolia]

Yes, it will no longer be live sand.

[simonedi]

why not get a spare bucket/container and mix up some saltwater. put a portion of the sand in it to keep the bacteria etc alive... then re add it to the tank once you have mixed the majority of the saltwater..
the bacteria alive in the portion you took out will help re seed the non live sand?

(could be wrong here, still learning myself but it seems to make sense)

[thegrun]

You are not only going to kill off all the live sand but also make it very difficult to mix in the salt later. Some salt crystals will fall into the sand and may take weeks to dissolve, or they may lie undissolved for a long period only to suddenly dissolve when the sand bed is disturbed, raising your salinity levels. It would be far better to add the water first, then the salt and then the sand.

[worm5406]

Make the salt water first. Then put the sand in it.

The bacteria that is in the sand as little as it may be is not going ot take over or be bad for your system.

It would be a lot more beneficial for your tank and time to try to save what strands are in it.

[fishgate]

umm... too late I already added 3 of the 4 bags and about 50 gallons of RO/DI. I was hoping to avoid the cloudiness getting it down first but that was a waste of time it is totally cloudy. Oh well. I am not pressed about it, it will become live again.

Also I was not aware that salt could be in water and not dissolve. I'll watch this closely but I was planning on adding the salt to the sump and circulating it through that way.

[Reefer_Addickt]

Sometimes when you add large dumps of salt into water it clumps and forms crystals. You can add it slowly to avoid this. Some also suggest cooler water for mixing your salt, then bringing to temperature.

Add some salt to the rodi buckets you're pouring into the tank, so at least it's a quasi salt water mix.

[thegrun]

A possible solution would be to mix the salt in a separate 5 gallon bucket(s) at a much higher than normal salinity, let it sit overnight and then add that water to your DT. You will likely get some calcium precipitation, but if the water is kept cold I doubt it would be excessive.

[Unome]

Originally Posted by fishgate

Also I was not aware that salt could be in water and not dissolve.

I have freshwater fish & every once in a while I put in some aquarium salt. Not a lot but just some.

A little trick a girl at PetSmart told me about one time.

1. You take a small plastic bowl. I use something about 3"x4". Make sure it's food safe. Just use one of the wife's kitchen bowls.
2. You pour the salt into the bowl.
3. You then pour some leftover gravel on top of the salt. You usually make it about as deep(or deeper) than your layer of salt.
4. Place the bowl inside the tank & lower it to the bottom.

Doing this slowed down the process and it took about 12 days to have the salt completely dissolved. You'll be able to tell because it will s-l-o-w-l-y disappear over the days. And if you get close to the glass and watch the water above the bowl, you can see the salt create like heat waves rising from the bowl. Well, in freshwater you can.

[worm5406]

Same in salt... When I add RO to mine (via the slow topoff) you can see the 'fumes' come off the drops in the water.

[Johnic]

How'd this all work out? I was going to also do the same. I want to add the live sand then ro/di water then run test to tank then add salt.

[Palting]

Originally Posted by Johnic

How'd this all work out? I was going to also do the same. I want to add the live sand then ro/di water then run test to tank then add salt.

The OP asked the question too late: he had already done it. He made the mistake, and was looking for ways to fix it. For you, I suggest doing it the right way from the get go. Fill your tank with tap water to run the leak test. Then empty the tap water, fill tank with RODI, add salt slowly, run the system for 24 hours to thoroughly mix salt, then adjust salinity. Once stable, add the live sand. You can add the sand through a large PVC pipe so it goes through the pipe and straight to the bottom so there's less of a sand storm.

Whether live sand is truly live or just sand with lot of dead organisms is debatable. However, you paid for live sand, might as well use it correctly, just in case .

[Johnic]

Ok. But I think I stead of adding tap I'm going to go straight to ro/di to save a step. Then add salt then add live sand. I like the large PVC idea, have u done this method before ?

[Fitz19d]

Palting is a ROTM/frequent contributor, so I would bet yes he's not just winging it.

The using a tube/pvc trick for sand is in numerous threads. (Both for first time fill as well as adding to an established tank. Worked great for me. )

I think the idea of tap first was so that you waste less water if there is a leak? (1gal rodi is 2-4 gallons wastewater to produce) I have 55g drums so if I had a leak would just redrain it out to my holding containers though.

[Palting]

I did not use the large PVC pipe trick for the reef, but I did it with the next tank, a FOWLR. Confirmed then that it DOES work .

Yeah, the tap water is just in case you have a leak you don't waste RODI when you have to empty the tank to try and fix the leak. Plus, it takes a while to accumulate all that RODI (took me almost a week for a 200 gal system), seems a shame to have to do it all over again. If you are reasonably confident in your plumbing, I suppose you could go straight to RODI. Just don't kick yourself too hard if you do find a leak .

[Johnic]

All good points. It's funny because I started to fill tank and noticed water seaping into the overflow box and the very bottom. I had to drain the tank find the leak and silicone it. I'm currently waiting for it to dry. Glad I found leak. Could of been a potential disaster.

[michfish5]

HELP PLEASE! Jumping on here because I just tried adding Caribsea "Live" sand to my new tank that I filled 3/4 up with RO/DI water and added the salt as I went along. Ran powerheads for a few days. Tested out at 1.024. Added my live rock today and then went to add the sand. Tried the "1 gallon bag" method of adding the sand but forgot to turn off one of the PHs. Needless to say, it's a sandstorm in there. But my question is: Is it okay to leave a PH on while the sand is settling? I have to have SOMETHING on to keep the water moving a bit for the live rock, don't I? How long will it take the sand to settle? I hardly got any in before I couldn't see my aquascape any longer and was afraid to try to add more. HELP!!!

[Johnic]

I wouldn't worry. It will settle soon enough. Turn off power head and run filter and carbon. No biggie.

[Palting]

Point the powerhead up towards the surface a little to keep the flow and aeration going for now. As Johnic said, no biggie. It will settle after a few days.

[michfish5]

Thanks! Much better today. Not so sure my Caribsea Ocean Direct live sand was all that live. Was more dry than I expected. It had quite a bit of debris in it. I pulled out a hefty chunk of seaweed but there was quite a bit of smaller pieces floating in there. Also tons of cruudy foam on the surface that i netted out. When I put some in a small container and lowered it in; the water above the sand turned a thick milky color Is that normal for a sand that doesn't need to be rinsed? Needless to say since I could not finish the job without knocking my rocks over I only got about an inch of sand in. Is that TOO shallow? I just want it for aesthetics anyway.

[ReeferKimberly]

Whenever I add sand I always take a sock or two (actual normal human clothing socks) and rubberband them to a powerhead so it pushes the water through them. I can have a tank clear in a day instead of a week. Just a little tip. Just wash them really well so they don't have any detergent or anything on them of course. Works brilliantly. Just take the socks off every few hours and run them under the sink and put them back on.

[fishgate]

I will never ever use that sand again. It never settled in my tank and I took it all out, dumped all of my water and put in regular aragonite "special grade". Read the reviews on it at wherever it is sold. Many people hate it because it is so dirty.