Adding sand to existing reef aquarium (1 Viewer)

[Daniel92481]

Adding sand to existing reef aquarium…live or dry? Rinse or no rinse? What is the procedure to keep your tank happy and healthy?

 

[soymilk]

rinse and slowly a little bit at a time

 

[Daniel92481]

Sounds good, ty. I was reading some conflicting info on rinsing. I appreciate the clarification.

 

[soymilk]

what were you reading about rinsing?

 

[Daniel92481]

Just a quick google search brought up some older articles on another forum…R2R. I made a post there and seems a little confusing as well about the rinsing procedure.

 

[Tangs]

I have never had the desire to do that. won' t it just end up clogging up your filter anyways?

 

[decimal]

As far as I know, rinsing only makes a difference if the substrate is seeded. I rinsed and used a pvc pipe to the bottom of the tank and a 4”-2” reduction to sort create a funnel. Worked pretty well. Could aim deposits as needed. Minimal dust and disturbance.

 

[Cody]

The bottle method is your friend.

 

[Reefahholic]

If it’s dry sand, always rinse it.

Adding it slowly is the best way to do about everything in this hobby, but I’ve seen people change a whole 8” cylinder of calcium reactor media (including myself) w/o much issues. It will stop growth for a bit and nutrients become less stable, but after it settles in it’s good to go.

One time I removed an entire sandbed via siphoning in one day w/o much issues. There was obviously a destabilizing event, but nothing died.