restarting an old tank

T

Taz and Zoey

New Member
Hello all,

My name is Chris and I was a member in your forum several years ago. I built a saltwater tank out of acrylic about 10 years ago and had it running for about 4 years. When we mover to a new house the tank crashed and has been setting ever since with all the rock and sand. I would like to set it back up if possible and had some questions. I have forgotten. A lot of the information I previously knew so was hoping to get some help. I was hoping to use a lot of the lid stuff if poosible but will get new where needed.

These numbers aren't exact but should be close. I belive the main is about 155gal and sump is about 55. I had 100ish lbs of rock and 100ish pounds of sand.

Can I wash the rock and sand? I know not to use chemicals. I currently have about half the rock in the bath tub soaking with tap water. Should I worry about the chemicals from the tap water soaking into the rock/sand?

If I can use the above rock and sand how much more will I need to seed the tank? How long will this take? Last time I bought all live sand/rock.

Thank you for any and all advice

Chris
 
lmforbis

lmforbis

Well-Known Member
Rock should be fine. Tap water is fine for soaking. You might want to get a couple rubbermade totes to soak the rock in so it doesn't scratch up your bath tub. I wouldn't reuse the sand. 3 or 4 bags of argonite sand. I would recomend the sand with larger grains in the 0.5 -2 mm range. The really fine stuff tends to blow around
 
one-fish

one-fish

Active Member
Look at buying a small amount of LR to seed your exist rocks, takes longer to cycle but will save some $
 
lmforbis

lmforbis

Well-Known Member
Live sand won't get you much certainly not what you'd get from live rock. You only need a couple pieces. I'd skip the live sand and get the live rock.
 
T

Taz and Zoey

New Member
jay0705 said:
New dry sand. Old rock with a bit of new live. Don't add a cuc until its needed
Click to expand...
Oh? This is one of the things I did wrong last time then. Thank you all for the help. I will have many more questions moving forward but have to finish clean up for now which is taking longer than I thought due to my work schedule.
 
T

Taz and Zoey

New Member
Well.... I was able to clear out the sand and do a quick cleaning on the inside of the tank last night and it seems that the inside acrylic is... I'm not really sure. It is rough to the touch and cloudy to look through. Its not really scratched up, a few here and there, but wont come off with anything I am willing to try and scrub it will. I have been researching how to sand and polish the acrylic and I seem to have found a decent resource for this so It seems this will be the next step.
 
2quills

2quills

Well-Known Member
Whatever u do, don't use ammonia based products like windex or other glass cleaners on accrylic.
 
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