how to tell if live sand is still alive?

[mr.p]

I have no idea of how to tell lol. My first tank I saw a lot of life, I saw little worms sticking out and many tunnels, but in my new tank I just set-up i see only a few tunnels and no worms or living things in the sand. Only thing I see in the filter are little pod guys getting stuck in it, but they're still alive at least. poor little guys.

 

[airforceb2]

It takes a little while for the worms to grow...plus you might have a bad batch of sand. The best thing to do is either find a LFS that sells sand straight out of their tank or see if you can trade sand with someone close to you.
I wouldn't worry about the pods...there are millions of them in your tank. The few in the filter isn't going to hurt anything.

 

[chipmaker]

If you have decent live rock it wold not take long for all kinds of things to populate the sand. I have seen good live rock used in a tank with nothjing but play sand and within a month or two that play sand looked as good as any live sand you could buy........yes it may not have had 100% of whats commonly found in a good ls but it was a thriving environment.......