reusing sand?

[Ulta]

Ok, so can I use the sand left over in this 24g bio-cube I picked up? The tank has been tore down for ~ a month or so now. There's no water in it but the sand is still moist.

Should I take the sand out and give the tank a real good scrubbing then put it back in? or would the tank be ok to just add water to? and any residue/dead matter left would just start my cycle?

 

[bjohanson1234]

Since its been sitting that long, I would personally rinse it out first. That is just my opinion, others might have different points of view.

 

[sen5241b]

Definitely rinse the sand out. Sand tends to collect detritus over time no matter how good the tank is maintained. People have stirred up old sand beds and a caused massive spike.

 

[BL1]

And since your taking the sand out anyway, you'd might as well clean the inside out with some vinegar and water

 

[Rcpilot]

Yeah, don't clean the tank with anything except vinegar and hot water. Or baking soda works well with a tooth brush to remove stains and crusty stuff on the glass.

I'd rinse the sand in RO water. Just put it in a 5g bucket thats reef safe - not an old paint bucket - and fill the bucket up part way with RO water. Swirl the sand around a bit and dump the water. Might have to do it twice.

I wouldn't rinse sand in tap water. I'd be worried it would pick up phosphates and heavy metals from the tap water. That's why I recommend RO water to rinse it.

 

[yote]

I'd put the old sand in a bucket and carry it out to the water hose and wash it out good then rinse it in RO water.

 

[Toolman]

Throw it out and buy 20 lbs of new sand if you are starting from new spend the $20.00

 

[sen5241b]

Don't rinse sand with a copper bucket or with a hose that has copper joints. Somebody on Liviing Reefs did that and killed all their inverts.

 

[Ulta]

Don't rinse sand with a copper bucket or with a hose that has copper joints. Somebody on Liviing Reefs did that and killed all their inverts.

Wow thats crazy, that seems kinda extreme...

 

[bjohanson1234]

Copper is very toxic to many inverts and corals. It is for that reason that the copper based treatments for Ich work so well. And are not reef safe.

 

[Bifferwine]

Wow thats crazy, that seems kinda extreme...

Not really extreme... I knew a guy that was moving everything into a larger tank, and wiped out all his inverts because he borrowed the hose from his mom's house to fill up the new tank, and it was old and the fittings leached copper into the water. His stuff started dying as soon as he moved it over. He couldn't figure it out, and he did a copper test, and it had high levels of copper. The only place he could figure it came from was the hose, since he used the same water for his tank before, and it didn't have copper in it.