How long to leave live sand.

When I set my tank up next week, do I need to have all of my trace elements stable and, most importantly, in the tank before I add the live sand? Or is it ok to just let the saltwater run through the system for a few days and then add the sand?

 

If you can, put the sand in a dry tank.
Then mix your saltwater.
Then put a bowl on top of the sand.
Pour your water into the bowl and let it overflow onto the sand.
This should help minimize cloudiness... but your water will still be cloudy, maybe for a couple days.

You can add water first, and then sand a few days later, but you'll need to turn off all pumps, stopping your water circulation. Otherwise you'll end up gunking everything up with sand. Your water will be super cloudy and you'll have to remove some water as the sand displaces it.

 

You don't need to worry about trace elements until you get corals. And even then, most salt mixes have a good balance of them.

There's nothing wrong with putting the water in and then adding the sand later. Your water is going to be cloudy no matter what.

 

but will I need to have my trace elements in before I add the sand?

 

I'm the last person to trust on giving advice like this, but I was told that you should put in your water first, then your live rocks and live sand last. After everything has settled then you put your pumps and such in. There are a number of videos on youtube that demonstrate people doing this just put "setting up a salt water tank" in the search and you'll have stuff to watch all evening. Good luck!

catherine

 

No. You do not even need to use trace elements, period. Salt mixes will have trace elements in them, so as long as you do water changes, your tank will get replenished with trace elements. Further on down the road if you try to keep more demanding corals, then you could look into additives such as trace elements.

All you will need to make sure are in line when you start are pH, temperature and salinity.

 

Are you confusing trace elements with a water conditioner?

Like Biff and Yote stated,You will not need to dose with trace elements.Definitely not now and probably not ever.If you are using tapwater then the conditioner does need to be added to the saltwater before the sand is added.

 

I'd take everyones advise here. For get about the trace elements, IMO most of them are "snake oils" anyway.

Biff is correct, it doesn't matter when you add the sand, whatever is easiest for you to do. I alway's put the sand in first, but that's because I don't want to remove any water as I put the sand in. You need to look for as stated above
PH
Salinity
and temp.