Transfering live sand - is this a bad idea?

[Doubledown]

I took down a 180 reef that has about 100#s or so of live sand. I would like to give this sand to a fellow reefer for his new set-up. Due to the flow pattern in my old tank, one corner developed a deeper sand bed (4 inches) while the rest remained shallow.

Is there any negative to my friend using this sand?

What should he do to prep or clean this sand (if that is needed)? He has a 40 gallon water change to do so he could use the old tank water to rinse the sand if that would help.

Thanks in advance for your help.

[sanababit]

he can rinse it if he wants, i to transfered my sand from a 46 gal tank to a 90 gal with no ill effects, i didnot rinse it either, good luck

sana

[Aquarist007]

It is generally not a good idea to use the sand from another tank
The sand breaks down over time and loses its buffering abilities and it can absorb alot of nitrates and phosphates
A better suggestion is to buy new argonite and seed it with one cup from the old sand

[Doubledown]

Thank you both.

[Aquarist007]

Originally posted by Doubledown
Thank you both.

your welcome the pleasure is ours

[enerfin]

rinse it off real good.

[widmer]

Based on how much sand costs, I wouldn't think twice about reusing the old stuff. I'm not exactly sure how it would ever lose its buffering abilities over time, unless it dissolves away entirely and no sand bed remains.

The same train of thought goes for any organics it ay or may not have absorbed into the sand. I don't believe that there could possibly be very many dissolved organics to worry about that may have become fixed by the substrate.

Just rinse free of detritus if you like, and you're set. You may anticipate a quick cycle as all the bacteria in the sand becomes disturbed by the move and a lot of it may die off.

[Aquarist007]

Originally posted by widmer
Based on how much sand costs, I wouldn't think twice about reusing the old stuff. I'm not exactly sure how it would ever lose its buffering abilities over time, unless it dissolves away entirely and no sand bed remains.

The same train of thought goes for any organics it ay or may not have absorbed into the sand. I don't believe that there could possibly be very many dissolved organics to worry about that may have become fixed by the substrate.

Just rinse free of detritus if you like, and you're set. You may anticipate a quick cycle as all the bacteria in the sand becomes disturbed by the move and a lot of it may die off.

The live rock and sand bed for the biological filtration for your reef tank. Do to this very important function I would recommend you buy could quality live rock and a good argonite sand bed

Based on how much sand costs--then this is a very good practice. It is not a great cost at all considering it could cause problems down the road for you when it is much much more problematic to have to change it out.

"I would still use real aragonite sand for a fish-only saltwater tank too! It does three things for you. It dissolves in your tank and buffers the water, adds calcium and raises the pH. It can maintain these at ocean levels. It will normally raise the KH (alkalinity to around 8 dKH, the pH to 8.2 and the calcium level over 400 ppm. Your fish will do much better in an aquarium with pH and KH like this, rather than a lot lower like you will get when using only ordinary calcite crushed coral sand which typically raises your pH only to about 7.6 Using aragonite sand in fish-only tanks should allow you to run the tank without constantly adding buffers. The aragonite sand is your buffer. A lot of people do this and love the simplicity. "

http://www.geocities.com/CapeCanaver...shedCoral.html

[widmer]

The sand and LR is indeed integral in the aquarium's biological filtration. However, it's of no consequence if it was previously used in another aquarium. Before that, it was previously used by nature. It won't cause any problems down the road to reuse sand from an old aquarium. If you're taking down an aquarium, and are afraid to reuse the sand, send it to me and I'll pay shipping.

[fishoutawater]

I didn't think aragonite would start to dissolve until the ph dropped to below 7.9 or thereabouts?

[Aquarist007]

Originally posted by fishoutawater
I didn't think aragonite would start to dissolve until the ph dropped to below 7.9 or thereabouts?

I believe that the pH would have to be below 7.6 for that to happen.
It slowly occurs over time --you can observe that in older argonite--almost like a powder instead of granular in more

[widmer]

I think a similar example would be people -- Our teeth may slowly erode over time because of bacteria on their surface secreting acids. However, our blood pH always remains neutral.