Sand transfer , do or don't?

Reeflogic

Reeflogic

New member
Hey reefers,

I'm in the process of a move and most likely selling my 90g. I have a 57g RR tank that I will be setting up to house my corals and some of my LR, fish, etc... I know there is much debate about moving sand beds from one tank to another, but mine is not deep, its is fine grain and is only 4 months old.

It is pretty clean as my flow keeps things moving around pretty well. I should be ok to just slowly transfer the sand, cup by slow cup over to the new tank and immediately have water in it and run skimmer / carbon for a day or so before moving the fish and corals, shouldn't I?

I'd like to get some feed back from folks on this. This will be a first for me to actually move the SB without letting it die and cleaning and reusing down the road, so I'm a little torn, I'm just trying to save a few bucks if possible, plus its seeded pretty well with micro fauna, which if I move it carefully enough, I'd think most of it would or should survive, I hope...

Anyway, let me know if anyone has had a negative experience with moving a shallow sand bed. Thanks!
 
IMO not worth the time or effort. Too much risk for really only an aesthetic reward.

If you really want the sand, I'd rinse it and add it later.
 
I hate wasting stuff but maybe a bag of new sand and seed it with a few cups of the old. Then rinse the rest of old out.

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Yeah, I think I am going to just put the sand in a tub with a Korellia to keep it alive but separate from my system and then maybe use it for something down the road. I will just go BB for now and see how I like that. Thanks for the input fellas.
 
I used a friend's sandbed and covered it with dry sand that I wanted for the top layer. It went from his tank to mine between a 4hr period. I probably waited a week before I transferred anything, but no casualties. It's worth the hassle IMO to keep established sand going if you've got the time to spare.
 
Thanks Jay, that's what I wanted to hear lol, but just like anything in this hobby, you can get twenty different responses and I read quite a few crash horror stories today and hated to chance it. I think I will just move it over and let it run in a tub a few days and check parameters after about a week and then see which route to take. Thanks for the input!
 
For reference, the tank has been up a yr and 2 months since I did it and things are still doing well. I'm in the process of upgrading, but I can't remove the sandbed and risk keeping the old system BB, so I'll have to seed a little and kill the rest...a shame really, but I have a specific direction I'm experimenting with and can't move everything over immediately. Gluck with it all!
 
jayjigga said:
For reference, the tank has been up a yr and 2 months since I did it and things are still doing well. I'm in the process of upgrading, but I can't remove the sandbed and risk keeping the old system BB, so I'll have to seed a little and kill the rest...a shame really, but I have a specific direction I'm experimenting with and can't move everything over immediately. Gluck with it all!
Click to expand...

Yeah, I hate killing anything, even a pod... I go through a pretty rigorous routine when I clean my eshopps sponge every few weeks and try and shake out any pods that have slipped in and made it home lol... So this sucks, but micro fauna and bacteria grow back much cheaper than SPS haha. Thanks for the wishes, hopefully I end up not losing anything during my move and tank transfer.
 
I dont think it be a issue specially heing that new i moved my tanks bunch of times and my sand bed is way older . But every tank is different so its hard to say for sure if it was me id use it but i really dont like the look of bare bottom
 
I transferred sand over with no problem on a 2 years old system when I upgraded from my 55 to a 72G. Didn't even have a cycle. If fact my corals looked ever better when I did. As Madjoe stated every system is different
 
When I moved the 180 into the 240 two years ago, I used all of the sandbed and added a few inched of new on top of it.
I had a few pockets of Hydrogen sulfide develop, but they went away quickly.
I've had some of that sand since the mid 80's.
 
I moved from a 29 to a 65 in January. I used all of the sand from the 29 and doubled the amount with new sand. I did a little rinse and did not have a cycle. I moved everything over with in 24 hours. No casualties!
 
I upgraded from a 55g to a 90g & used all the old sand. I used a flat scoop & tried not to disturb it much. Transferred everything inside the 55g the same day. Nothing died but I wasn't keeping any SPS, other than montis & digis.
 
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