Adding Live Sand

[nyyank]

Can live sand such as that sold on this site, be added to an established reef or can I expect a parameter spike?
I have a 90 gal with a 5 inch DSB which I would like to move to a new 120 by removing the top layer first and transferring the rest to the new, and add another 80 lbs of new LS on top,then replace the removed top layer.
I have some large tubs I could keep my corals in for several days with heater and powerhead if necessary-I plan to move existing water to the new setup and top off with fresh then re-acclimate the fish
Does this plan seem reasonable?
Thanks.

 

[oceana]

the plan is fine. moving the old sand is going to cause a small spike anyways.
depending on how long your tank has been set up you may want to really think about a wash of your sand. it is amazing how much crap it holds.
when i move tanks i pull everything from the tank into holding tanks.
I then pull as much water out as i can for the new tank.
i then fresh water rinse all the sand until clean before adding it to the new tank. dont worry about it being "live" the sand will VERY quickly repopulate in a mater of weeks . buying live sand is very overrated
if your tank is not to old i would skip the above step and simply give the sand from the old tank a good stir in the remaining water from the old tank before moving the sand to the new one. this will take out a very good amount of crap.