Does bag of dry sand contain pests and need to be sterilized?

[Steve Carlson]

I'm restarting a tank after a 2 year break and want to avoid pests. I've bleached my old rock and equipment but have a 4 year old bag of unused dry Aragonite. Can I consider that substrate pest free at this point to rinse in RODI water and add to my cycle tank? Or should it still be sterilized in bleach/vinegar and thoroughly rinsed/dried first. (I've heard it's very difficult to remove all bleach from sand which will probably stall or kill my cycle). Thanks.

 

[JCTReefer]

It’s fine. No pest to worry about.

 

[Philly Reefer]

I'm restarting a tank after a 2 year break and want to avoid pests. I've bleached my old rock and equipment but have a 4 year old bag of unused dry Aragonite. Can I consider that substrate pest free at this point to rinse in RODI water and add to my cycle tank? Or should it still be sterilized in bleach/vinegar and thoroughly rinsed/dried first. (I've heard it's very difficult to remove all bleach from sand which will probably stall or kill my cycle). Thanks.

This is what I would do. Rinse it real good with tap water 1st. After it's clear, then soak it with rodi water. I don't think I want to waste my rodi water to fully rinse dry sand..

 

[JCTReefer]

Yes, rinse repeatedly in tap water. I usually do this in the bathtub in a 5 gallon buck. Do like a 1/4 of a bag at a time. If it’s a 40lb bag that is. Pour the sand in, fill the bucket and stir it up, pour the dirty water off the top. Repeat. Once it’s mostly clear do the final rinse in RO/Di.

 

[JCTReefer]

Or just stick a water hose in the bottom of the bucket. Let it churn for a bit until clear. The sterilization process of a quarantine tank is the drying process if you use vinegar instead of bleach. That kills any kind of pathogens. So dry sand shouldn’t harbor anything bad.

 

[Steve Carlson]

Thanks all, I appreciate guidance and will do so. Just paranoid about doing something that will introduce problems right from the start. JCTReefer - Clarifying your comment about vinegar sterilization of the sand... I'm assuming I use a 10% vinegar solution for 24 hours (instead of 10% bleach)? of course followed by a long soak, thorough rinse and total multi-day dry to evaporate any remaining vinegar? Does that sound correct?

 

[JCTReefer]

I was referring to the sterilization process of a quarantine tank. Don't use vinegar on the sand. My point was that some choose to use bleach when sterilizing a qt tank. And some use Vinegar and let dry. When using vinegar, the drying part is the sterilization part. So dry sand in general won't have any nasties.

 

[JCTReefer]

Your sand is sterile. No need for bleach or vinegar. Just rinse and use.

 

[Philly Reefer]

Or if you want to be safe, just dose prime after the water is clear. Cause tap water would have some chlorine in them. Unless you are on well water.
Then soak with rodi

 

[Steve Carlson]

I appreciate the instructions. It's nice to know the crushed coral sand is one less thing to worry about. As for Philly Reefer's comment about my water - I'm in Omaha, Nebraska so our city water uses Chloramine, so I make my own RODI and at this point I've already have wasted a lot rinsing the sand... Glad I enjoy the hobby!

The reason for my initial question about sand is because I started a bare bottom, dry rock cycle 4 weeks ago using one raw shrimp for Ammonia, and Microbacter7. Of course I know bare bottom is supposed to be a 4 month cycle, but my Ammonia has been about 0.25 and no sign of nitrite or nitrate after 4 weeks from my API test kits, so of course I'm impatient.

So, I watched a YouTube lecture on cycling by Dr. Tim himself at a reef seminar and his point was we're all doing it all wrong unless we lower our salinity well below 1.020, raise our temperature above 80, keep the lights off, and get some sand in there so his bacteria has a decent amount of surface area to get established (and dry rock is a lame excuse for surface area compared to crushed coral in his opinion). I still want my display tank to be bare bottom, but submerging a glass cake pan filled with aragonite into my cycle tank in the basement seems like a good idea to help get a healthy volume of bacterial established.

I'll update this later the week when my cycle finally finishes.

 

[CanuckReefer]

I appreciate the instructions. It's nice to know the crushed coral sand is one less thing to worry about. As for Philly Reefer's comment about my water - I'm in Omaha, Nebraska so our city water uses Chloramine, so I make my own RODI and at this point I've already have wasted a lot rinsing the sand... Glad I enjoy the hobby!

The reason for my initial question about sand is because I started a bare bottom, dry rock cycle 4 weeks ago using one raw shrimp for Ammonia, and Microbacter7. Of course I know bare bottom is supposed to be a 4 month cycle, but my Ammonia has been about 0.25 and no sign of nitrite or nitrate after 4 weeks from my API test kits, so of course I'm impatient.

So, I watched a YouTube lecture on cycling by Dr. Tim himself at a reef seminar and his point was we're all doing it all wrong unless we lower our salinity well below 1.020, raise our temperature above 80, keep the lights off, and get some sand in there so his bacteria has a decent amount of surface area to get established (and dry rock is a lame excuse for surface area compared to crushed coral in his opinion). I still want my display tank to be bare bottom, but submerging a glass cake pan filled with aragonite into my cycle tank in the basement seems like a good idea to help get a healthy volume of bacterial established.

I'll update this later the week when my cycle finally finishes.

We were all impatient and still are to degree....stay the course. Slow and easy wins this game or at least makes it easier, every time! Rinse rinse rinse, rinse with Rodi.....