Sand Question

[bean]

I have a queation about the addition of sand into the aquarium. I am planning on buying some sand (NewCastle or Southdown). Is there anything that i need to do with it before adding it to the tank, ie clean it?. I have 75# of live sand to seed the non-living sand but i'm unsure of what steps I should take to ensure the process goes smoothly. Should I add the sand directly to the water already in the tank or should it be the other way around?
Addidtional info:
have all the equipment, 50# of base rock ordered and will order 100# of live rock in the next few days. Tank size 100g. I returned the 75g when I found the 100g for the same price.
Thanks!

 

[a&m aggie 04']

i wouldnt wash the sand, but you will have a clowdy tank for a few day to a week. If you already have water in the tank, just add the sand. If the water isnt in it then id add the sand 1st, then you can either add the water very slowly to prevent a dust storm or I've also heard of ppl pu.tting a plastic bag over the sand and pouring water onto the bag. No personal experience with that but seems like it would work (dont know if any chemicals etc come off the bag though.
HTH,
Mark

 

[reefnut]

One thing to add, If the tank is up and running with the LS already added... Only add about 1/2" of sand at a time. Give the critters in the LS a few days to climb up then add another 1/2" and so on.

 

[thomas712]

So the big question is with all these supplies coming in is; Is the tank setup with water yet, this will make a difference, is there any rock in the tank yet? Is the baserock calcium carbonate base, maybe from the Hawaiian Islands? If so I did very similar to you. Southdown and Base rock to start with.
I added an inch of the southdown and placed my rocks down on top, this with water in the tank,gets really cloudy, had to wait several days just to see the rock so that I could adjust it, then added the rest of the sand, only 80 pounds in a 90 gallon for me. If you have water in already and have an aquascaping idea then perhaps you could drain the water into plastic trash cans and give yourself room to work with the sand and the rock.
Place the southdown in first and the livesand on top, aquascape to your hearts content. Like stated before do not rinse the sand, if the base rock is calcium carbonate based you do not need to rinse it either.
Your live sand should speed up the cycle and reduce the cloudiness a little quicker than what I did having no live sand. You will want to have a turkey baster after a few days or so to blow the sand off of the rocks.
Thomas

 

[cb]

What we did when added southdown to my tank and my friends tank is we drained all the water into containers along with the lr and critters and saved it . Then we added the southdown and put a little water in there so we could add the live sand on top we then sat a 21/2 gallon bucket in the tank and added the water into the bucket so we wouldn't disturb the sand too much , after the tank was about 3/4 full we took the bucket out and added the rock and the rest of the water. Her tank cleared up in about 2 hrs and mine cleared up over night (she rinsed her sand and I did not)HTH