Adding sand

vsecret

vsecret

Member
So I have had my tank for 2.5 years now. Since I am busy working full time and going back to school full time, my tank has taken a back seat. I finally found a great LFS that I love and i have been building my tank back up. As I was looking at other peoples pictures, I realized that I am lacking in sand. If I wanted to add sand can I just get live sand and pipe it in slowly? I feel as though my sand has disappeared over the past year or so!
 
dmcdonald

dmcdonald

Member
I actually just added 10lbs of live sand yesterday to beef up my bed. If you were using dry sand a pipe would work okay. As you know, the live sand is packed moist so it'll clog the pipe.
I turned off all powerheads and hang on back protein skimmer while I lowered the bag into the tank right near the bottom. I very slowly scooped the sand out w/ my hand. Tank was cloudy for about12 hrs before crystal clear.
However, be sure to check your filters after the water clears up. The bubble catcher / filter in my protein skimmer was almost totally clogged due to the fine sand particles collecting in the filter creating a thick clay. I could have potentially overflown the protein skimmer if I hadn't cleaned it out (spilling about 10 - 20 gallons onto the ground).
 
dmcdonald

dmcdonald

Member
Just be careful not to stir up your original sand bed too much. As I just found out the hard way it will release negative debris giving you a spike in your water values.
As I'm new to this, the LFS said I pushed around the bed too much after I added the new sand (with my hand). Releasing decomposing nitrates giving me a spike in ammonia / nitrates and drop in pH.
So far, I haven't seen any indications of 'new' or 'partial' cycle secondary the added sand.
 
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