Question on adding sand to existing tank

MamaP · Apr 6, 2020

Hi, All.
I have a 20g long that I recently set up as a frag tank. Just added my first resident fish after quarantine, so it does have one fish in it. I used real reef rock and live sand, but I'm now realizing that the sand I got is too fine and there's not enough of it, so the power heads blow it around and I have naked spots.
I want to add another bag, possibly a bigger grain to balance it out, but will this harm my fish?
Thank you for any advice you can give!

AcroNem · Apr 6, 2020

I have added sand many times to established systems. I always just do it slowly. Added slowly and evenly mixed in or in sections will be fine. An example is the last time I added sand to my 150, i was adding 4 bags but did about a half a bag every few days to certain parts and mixed it in and monitored parameters.

Flippers4pups · Apr 6, 2020

You can go many different ways on this.

1.) Remove all of the fine sand and add new sand.

2.)Remove the fine sand a little at a time and add new sand to those spots.

3.)Add new sand to the existing sand.

I personally would remove some of the fine sand and add some new sand, a quarter of the tank at a time.

I've replaced my whole sand bed this way without issue.

When adding new sand, rinse well with tap water, a small amount at a time using a fish net in a sink or panty hose stretched over a five gallon bucket. Dump rinsed sand into another bucket and fill with RO/DI water. Add prime or Amquel.

Drain off water and using a length of PVC pipe, 1" or so in diameter long enough to reach the bottom of your tank using a funnel, dump small amounts down the pipe.

This method minimizes the amount of "dust" in the water column. There will be a small amount, but much less than if you hadn't rinsed it and just dumped it in.

As far as sand grade, I personally like caribsea special grade aragonite sand. It's big enough to stay in place and wrasse friendly.

Hope this helps.

MamaP · Apr 6, 2020

Flippers4pups said:
You can go many different ways on this.

1.) Remove all of the fine sand and add new sand.

2.)Remove the fine sand a little at a time and add new sand to those spots.

3.)Add new sand to the existing sand.

I personally would remove some of the fine sand and add some new sand, a quarter of the tank at a time.

I've replaced my whole sand bed this way without issue.

When adding new sand, rinse well with tap water, a small amount at a time using a fish net in a sink or panty hose stretched over a five gallon bucket. Dump rinsed sand into another bucket and fill with RO/DI water. Add prime or Amquel.

Drain off water and using a length of PVC pipe, 1" or so in diameter long enough to reach the bottom of your tank using a funnel, dump small amounts down the pipe.

This method minimizes the amount of "dust" in the water column. There will be a small amount, but much less than if you hadn't rinsed it and just dumped it in.

As far as sand grade, I personally like caribsea special grade aragonite sand. It's big enough to stay in place and wrasse friendly.

Hope this helps.

I didn't think you were supposed to rinse live sand.

homer1475 · Apr 6, 2020

I wonder why your putting sand in a frag tank? Unless this truly isn't a frag tank? Sand can bring all kinds of problems in a frag tank.

Crustaceon · Apr 6, 2020

homer1475 said:
I wonder why your putting sand in a frag tank? Unless this truly isn't a frag tank? Sand can bring all kinds of problems in a frag tank.

A tank with frags doth not maketh it a “frag tank”. But seriously, +1 on a frag tank with sand being really weird. You usually don’t want detritus and other crud that typically gets lodged in sand anywhere in a frag system except for a filter sock of floss, which happens to be in an attached sump for easy removal and disposal.

mcshams · Apr 14, 2020

There is a VERY large article within these R2R archives on the benefits of rinsing live sand. We have done it 3 times and LOVE the results. We run hose water through the sand in a 5 gallon bucket until it runs clear. Then we strain it through pantyhose. After strained, I typically rinse/strain about 3 times with prepared salt water.

There is VERY little beneficial bacteria removed by doing this. You remove nearly ALL the silt (not ever possible to remove ALL per se, but the results of nearly no cloudiness is profound). You also remove a lot of the small silicates. These silicates feed silicate shelled cellular animals (diatoms) which prevents the diatomaceous bloom.

As a result, we get beautiful clear water, nearly instantly after sand added. We replaced the sand on a already cycled tank and without problems despite some peoples' concerns that this would cause a "mini-cycle".

I will scour this site trying to find the write-up on this method so you don't have to believe a scrub like myself, but we have been convinced that you can easily do this. Your tank is so new that I can't imagine that doing this would set yourself back much at all (if any).

I agree also with the synopsis that @Flippers4pups gives in that you can easily stage your sand transfer.

mcshams · Apr 14, 2020

Official Sand Rinse and Tank Transfer thread

The best way to prepare your sand for use in a transferred reef tank, an upgraded reef tank, a reef tank under invasion etc is to put the sand in sections in a bucket and TAP WATER rinse it outside over and over with the garden hose until all the silt / waste is ejected, expect hours of work per...

www.reef2reef.com

Start here. I believe the R2R member is @brandon429

It's long.. Very long. But I read every word, read every link, before I became convinced. I compared it to other methodologies and used my own background in Biology/Chemistry as well as Marine Biology. It was only after that scrutiny that my wife and I decided to do a complete sand swap. We followed recommendations in these links and while I can't promise that it would work for everyone, it went AWESOME for us.