adding sand to existing setup

[nu2salt]

i just wanted to know what kind of sand from lowes is safe to add to my tank. i want to increase the sand bed to around 4" if i remove all the rock and corals from the tank can i add the sand or do i need to take out the sand that's already in the tank and then put it back in.
also will this cause the tank to cycle again?
i was hoping for a name brand of the sand.
i'm off to do a search to see what i can find out.

 

[braydonosu]

In my opinion there is no sand from Lowe's that will not kill everything in your tank. None of the sand packaged for recreation in marine grade. You need to go to a pet store or an online site and get marine grade sand. I have added sand on top of an existing sand bed before and I had no problem. I did use 'live sand' and I only added about 5 lbs to a 75 gal tank, so there may have been a small cycle, but i could not detect it. I hope this helps a little

 

[renogaw]

white castle play sand is good for salt tanks. just make sure the sand is not silica based and you'll be fine.
also, make sure you add only about 1/4" at a time

 

[dinks]

Adding new sand to an existing tank can throw it back into a cycle. The only sand I know of that is acceptable to do this with is Nature's Ocean Bio-Activ Live Argonite.

 

[renogaw]

adding new LIVE sand that has dried off a little can cause a new cycle.
if you put dry sand, never been live sand, in there's nothing to cause ammonia spike