bought the wrong sand so....I’m gonna rinse it

[lubeck]

Luckily my tank isn’t even cycled yet so I will be replacing my sand with 20lbs of special grade. The sand I got was too fine And blows everywhere.

I will be syphoning out the old with flex tubing. I will be fully rinsing the new live sand before adding it.

curious to know if there is scientific evidence that the bacteria levels are the same in live sand even after rinsing it?

should have the sand by Tuesday and will post pics once I get it in.

 

[Tamberav]

Live sand doesn't seem very live... paying $$ for some old water/shelf bags imo!

Rinse away!

 

[lubeck]

Got my sand today. I rinsed it for an hour but still had some cloudiness. I’m happy with the change. I already turned my mp10 at 100% and the sand shifted but didn’t fly everywhere.

we will see how
Long it takes to clear up

 

[JNalley]

Live sand doesn't seem very live... paying $$ for some old water/shelf bags imo!

Rinse away!

it's important to note that there are at least 3 types of live sand.

1) Live Sand from vendors like TampaBay Saltwater, where they procure the sand from the ocean floor, bag it, and ship it to you typically airport to airport in a decent amount of water.
2) Arag-Alive sand (and those like it (Most popular)) by CaribSea which gives you sand, in a bag of freshwater, that has spored bacteria in it that "activates" with exposure to saltwater.
3) OceanDirect sand (and others like it) which is similar to the first, where it's harvested and bagged from the ocean, but is only damp and lives in a bag that allows gas exchange.

They are not in any particular order, 1 and 3 are the better choices to make.

 

[Tamberav]

it's important to note that there are at least 3 types of live sand.

1) Live Sand from vendors like TampaBay Saltwater, where they procure the sand from the ocean floor, bag it, and ship it to you typically airport to airport in a decent amount of water.
2) Arag-Alive sand (and those like it (Most popular)) by CaribSea which gives you sand, in a bag of freshwater, that has spored bacteria in it that "activates" with exposure to saltwater.
3) OceanDirect sand (and others like it) which is similar to the first, where it's harvested and bagged from the ocean, but is only damp and lives in a bag that allows gas exchange.

They are not in any particular order, 1 and 3 are the better choices to make.

yes but he has bagged I would rinse it personally

 

[Jekyl]

Unless you're getting live sand from a place like gulfliverock.com I wouldn't bother. Much better off with regular sand and adding some mature live rock instead.

 

[lubeck]

I got the #2 above. I get my live rock tomorrow from gulf live rock.

 

[lubeck]

water cleared up by 90% by morning. Got my live rock today

 

[Mark Novack]

I cannot find dry sand in the size I want. Its 0.5 - 1.2 mm. Sand storm stuff. The other dry is 2-3 mm, a bit too course. I want 1 - 2 mm so Caribsea live it is. Its only a few euros more per bag than dry and, yes, I rinse. The last time I dumped 8 bags of unrinsed live sand into an aquarium I spent 3 weeks cleaning mud. It was a good 10 days before I could see the back again. The Caribsea dry special 1-2 is not availalbe here. I'm not going to just flush the sand. I do have a plan to clean it well, but gently over a few days while adding some reef starting stuff.

 

[Aquajamin]

I have used Ocean Direct sand without rinsing as suggested by the supplier. It contains the bacteria for seeding the tank. The only way I know of for inexpensively testing for bacteria would be the petri dish method.

 

[mmadderom]

Luckily my tank isn’t even cycled yet so I will be replacing my sand with 20lbs of special grade. The sand I got was too fine And blows everywhere.

I will be syphoning out the old with flex tubing. I will be fully rinsing the new live sand before adding it.

curious to know if there is scientific evidence that the bacteria levels are the same in live sand even after rinsing it?

should have the sand by Tuesday and will post pics once I get it in.

Personally I’d never rinse sand sold for saltwater aquariums. Sand is a good chunk of your live filtration, let it do its job. Rinsing it just dilutes what you bought it for.

 

[monkeyCmonkeyDo]

Stuff in those Carib sea bags is the same stuff in the bottle bacteria or booster probably. Lol.
They just don't want the cloudiness
D

 

[N.Sreefer]

Understanding structure/function relationships in nitrifying microbial communities after cross-transfer between freshwater and seawater - Scientific Reports

In this study, nitrification before and after abrupt cross-transfer in salinity was investigated in two moving bed biofilm reactors inoculated with nitrifying cultures that had adaptation to freshwater (FR) and seawater salinities (SR). FR and SR MBRRs were exposed to short and long term...

www.nature.com

It will shift the microbial community temporarily but the Shannon-Wiener Index will not fall in a statistically significant way. Even if you put the sand in a fw tank for a week and then switch back to sw. People do not give chemolithotrophic bacteria enough credit the community will survive and sometimes even become more diverse after disturbance.

 

[Dburr1014]

Got my sand today. I rinsed it for an hour but still had some cloudiness. I’m happy with the change. I already turned my mp10 at 100% and the sand shifted but didn’t fly everywhere.

we will see how
Long it takes to clear up

Rinse it more