Adding sand-need advice

TommysGirl · 11-10-2006, 04:20 PM

Hello All,

Ok I am going to be adding argonite sand to my established 30 gallon tank. My plan is to only add a little bit at a time and to kind of poke it in/mix with my crushed coral. Do you see any potential problems with this, other than maybe causing a mini-cycle? Thanks so much!

TommysGirl

TommysGirl · 11-10-2006, 04:21 PM

Also...there are NO directions with the bag. Is it necessary to rinse this sand or do any kind of prep work to it? Thanks so much!!

ahill3780 · 11-10-2006, 07:40 PM

Definately don't rinse it out. You can poke it in or lay it over the substrate, but I'd go ahead and add it all in, no real point to adding it in slowly.

HTH,
Aaron

TommysGirl · 11-10-2006, 08:02 PM

Thanks Aaron! I don't know if this makes a difference but I did find some directions (itty bitty on the bottom of the bag) that says to rinse a few pounds at a time until most of the cloudiness disappears. What do you think?

ahill3780 · 11-10-2006, 08:09 PM

There's no point in washing sand IMO, its going to cause a sandstorm one way or the other so why bother with the time and effort?

Save yourself the backache, trust me!

TommysGirl · 11-10-2006, 09:29 PM

No rinsing it will be then!! Thanks again for the advice!!

Tommy Gun · 11-11-2006, 02:58 PM

Tommysgirl,

I will back up Jay here with the live sand and rising it out. Coming from the freshwater side of the planet, I thought all sand was a pain and would end up making my tank look like coffee or something. I was really impressed with the sand for my SW tank. It settled out in less than a day (overnight basically) and it is not as easy to kick up as the sand I used to have in my FW tank. Even when I rearranged live rock or did tank maintenance on my SW tank, any sand I kicked up into the water would settle out in a couple of hours. It is very nice and user friendly, at least from my experiences with the stuff.

TommysGirl · 11-11-2006, 03:40 PM

TommyGun,

I'm glad to hear that you have had good experiences with SW sand. I am going to remove some of my rock, simply for mobility's sake within my little tank! My nitrates are a bit high right now, do you think this will help lower them (in the long run I mean)??

Thanks again!

TommysGirl

Tommy Gun · 11-11-2006, 04:15 PM

From what I understand, the only way to get nitrates out of your tank is via water changes. The best way to prevent them is keeping the bioload in balance such as keeping the right number and type of fish in the tank and not over feeding. For my SW tank, I found hermit crabs invaluable for cleaning up almost any and all of the food that happened to drop to the bottom of my tank. I think this has helped me out quite a bit. The sand may help increase the surface area in which your bacteria colony can live on, which will help over all. With my live sand, I found that I got A LOT of critters hidden within it (including some really, really small clams) which I have learned is usually a really good thing to have.

Again, for me it is hard to say anything definitivly about a SW tank just yet other than the very basics. I am still learning and evolving with my tank, but I hope to be getting a bunch of new experience over the next couple of weeks since I have FINALLY made my decisions on stocking options and have already started ordering and planning for adding these fish and inverts. Picking the right fish for a tank has a big impact on one's ability to reduce nitrates as well as keep the rest of the water parameters in check, that I am sure of!

TommysGirl · 11-11-2006, 10:52 PM

Wow! What a difference the sand makes visually. My clown isn't happy though-she's going ape to get "her" territory back into shape

This may be a silly question, but the sand that I did not use (I only used about twenty pounds), can I store that in the sack it came in and use it later, or does opening the bag compromise the sand?

Thanks so much for all of your help everyone!

TommysGirl