What to do with Live sand?

[9kin]

Hey people!

I am buying 100lb of Fiji Pink live sand. Normally i would just put it in the aquarium, and wait fr the water to clear up. However, it was recommended by a friend to rinse Live Sand in fresh water before placing it in the aquarium.

I could understand rinsing it with salt water, but Fresh water....? Wouldn't it kill all live bacteria on it? What is the proper way to introduce NEW live sand to your aquarium?

Thanks in advance for any input.

 

[9kin]

It looks like this website is not very active. (at least concerning help). Got 18 replies somewhere else while this thread at MR got 0 replies.

This site is still great for looking up information from back in the days, when this site was alive.

Anyway. Thanks for stopping by to those 22 people who clicked on my thread.

 

[saltwaterinbrooklyn]

Hey i wish i knew what to tell ya , i honestly dont see too much harm in a quick rinse with rodi water as long as the temp is neutral! I rinsed mine when i got it and i dont think it did anything to it especialy since its gonna cycle itself anyway right?! So i dont see any harm in rinsing it to clear away loose particles that may cause excessive clouding.

 

[jscarlata]

Dude, chill... You were right... Don't rinse live sand, rinse dry sand. And if you don't want a lot of algae in your tank, rinse it with RO water over tap water.
BTW If you haven't paid for it, don't bother... Live sand in a bag is kind of a waste especially 100lbs of it...
Just get 100 lbs of dry sand, then get several lbs of live sand from an established tank to seed it. Save yourself some money

 

[saltwaterinbrooklyn]

Thats true man !! Good point im sure you can get good old established sand fairly easy out here .

 

[Wesley]

100lb of live sand? Sand are so dense and cannot breath much. By the time you are ready to use them, they are all dead.

I would just use dry sand, rinse them. And then just pour some "real" live sand into the tank to seed it.

Back to your question. Yes, if you use fresh water to rinse it, the beneficial bacteria that lives in salt water will die for sure. Osmosis kills! In a microscope, you can see them inflate and burst. not pretty!

 

[JARRETT SHARK]

100lb of live sand? Sand are so dense and cannot breath much. By the time you are ready to use them, they are all dead.

I would just use dry sand, rinse them. And then just pour some "real" live sand into the tank to seed it.

Back to your question. Yes, if you use fresh water to rinse it, the beneficial bacteria that lives in salt water will die for sure. Osmosis kills! In a microscope, you can see them inflate and burst. not pretty!

x2 i agree,

ps maybe those 22 people did not know the answer,:scratchch

 

[9kin]

Thanks guys. I also do not trust all that "Live Sand" bs. However i could not find any dry Fiji Pink (at least places where i was looking). So since i got what i got - i would like to preserve (if any) bacteria that lives there.

So i guess i will rinse it with salt rodi water. That will minimize cloudiness and wash away all the dead bacteria.

Thanks a lot.

 

[Chris Jury]

You can rinse in RODI if you want, but anything that was alive in the sand will be pretty dead afterwards You can rinse in saltwater if you want, but my experience with this sort of sand is that it doesn't cloud *too* badly, and the water generally clears in a day or so. If it were me, I'd just add it as is, or with a light seawater rinse.

Granted, it did take a day for this thread to get replies, but consider: summertime is always dead on reefkeeping forums as compared to the rest of the year--people are outside doing things; MR is populated mostly by people in the NYC area--it inherently has a smaller population than a national or international forum, but it offers many advantages that those forums don't. I've always found that the local forum (having lived in MI and NC and spent significant time in NY) has a lot to offer that national/international forums cannot possibly offer.

cj

 

[jscarlata]

X2...don't rinse it...the cloudiness youngish away will have a lot of the bacteria in it...

 

[NickSDC]

If I knew it came from a healthy established tank and it was still live I wouldn't rinse it. Otherwise I'd do what wesley said.

 

[9kin]

Granted, it did take a day for this thread to get replies, but consider: summertime is always dead on reefkeeping forums as compared to the rest of the year--people are outside doing things; MR is populated mostly by people in the NYC area--it inherently has a smaller population than a national or international forum, but it offers many advantages that those forums don't. I've always found that the local forum (having lived in MI and NC and spent significant time in NY) has a lot to offer that national/international forums cannot possibly offer.

cj

I agree with you 100%. In no way i tried to disrespect. After all thats where i get all my ideas and help from. And i am also not demanding anything. Because i am here to learn (and people indeed help me here) and have no right to say anything stupid about this site. I just constatated the fact. Sorry if it came out bad.

Regarding the sand, thanks a lot for everybody's input.

 

[Imbarrie]

I am assuming this is coming from bags and not from another persons tank.

If the former, I would not rinse it at all. Just throw it in and let it cycle.
If the later I would rinse the crap out of it and rinse the crap out of it some more with RODI and then with saltwater. You will be disturbing a very complex biota and in the worst case you have the potential of releasing deadly unprocessed chemicals, like hydrogen sulfide or worse, into the water column that could have detrimental affects on whatever it is in your tank. Or not.
I have reused sand but every time I cycled the sand before I reused it.