Do you have to remove your sand and replace it

[Hammerstone]

When you move your tank. About a 30 or so minute move. If you leave your sand in your tank will it nuke your fish? I read this article about moving tanks and it scared the hell out of me. Gotta love the Internet. The guy moved and everything died. We have a month until we move out of the old place and into the new place. Sorry to bother you all. I'm really attached to my fish. Especially my clowns.

[uwdanno]

Following. I've got a move coming up too. Hopefully after yours

[Matteo]

Everyone says you should but I have moved tanks a lot and always used the same sand and never lost anything

[Mkus]

No I've moved my tank a few times never removed sand just leave some water covering it..

That's all I have ever done.

[Mojado]

Leave but don't stir up or agitate the sand, correct?

[PDR]

I've moved my tanks once about 20 minutes away and left the sand in (actually left everything but 1/2 the water and the top rock) and everything was fine.

[brandon429]

the simple way to look at the question is how much waste would you like to transport, its not that its impossible to move waste around and not get a cycle. If you purposely want detrital mud in your system and the algae that it eventually feeds, why not add some extra waste from a friends tank to the sandbed as well when re setting it up to speed accumulations along

 

 

 

yes, change out the sand or rinse it free since your entire reef is already disassembled. you can rinse with tap water and it will not kill the nitrifying bacteria in the sand, before putting back in tank you re rinse w sw. have done this numerous times. tap water itself has live nitrifiers in it (check aerobic colony counts from your local water supply) ergo washing your sand briefly with it isnt instantly harmful. getting detritus out is great, leaving the active filter bed is great too. the detritus is what causes crashes, for the people who've had them which absolutely does occur. A clean sandbad cannot crash from any move or disturbance.

 

THis is my list of benefits that age old waste contributes to your tank:

 

the need for GFO

algae problems if you dont

the need for plant binding

algae problems if you dont

some actually decent coral feed aggrerate, but in addition to DOC's and direct feeds and so is in excess.

and then some algae problems a few mos after setup due to disturbing but not removing waste. or more gfo, you can always bandaid this continually. many like that way so they can keep the hands off model going as long as possible, until forced by biology to do something else.

[kams56]

I have to move my tank a minimum of twice a year, usually more, with one of the moves being a min of an hour drive. I don't replace the sand and actually don't recommend doing so. I also have some corals that have grown onto a fixture that is exposed for the duration (clove polyps on a conch shell hanging from back wall) and they have survived 2 transfers so far, one being over an hour. which the cloves were exposed for probably just under 2 hours (including draining and travel time.

 

For the sand I leave a small amount of water, about and inch simply drain it out once I arrive as it has stirred up a lot of junk during the move. And the cloves get covered with a wet paper towel and I try to keep them wet either by changing the towel or re-wetting it when I can. The cloves being exposed worried me a lot more than the sand since the sand and what parts of my clean up crew I wanst able to easily remove were safely under water the entire time.

 

Stressful times... yes

But so far so good. Actually preparing yup have to move again within the month.

[Hammerstone]

I have to move my tank a minimum of twice a year, usually more, with one of the moves being a min of an hour drive. I don't replace the sand and actually don't recommend doing so. I also have some corals that have grown onto a fixture that is exposed for the duration (clove polyps on a conch shell hanging from back wall) and they have survived 2 transfers so far, one being over an hour. which the cloves were exposed for probably just under 2 hours (including draining and travel time.

 

For the sand I leave a small amount of water, about and inch simply drain it out once I arrive as it has stirred up a lot of junk during the move. And the cloves get covered with a wet paper towel and I try to keep them wet either by changing the towel or re-wetting it when I can. The cloves being exposed worried me a lot more than the sand since the sand and what parts of my clean up crew I wanst able to easily remove were safely under water the entire time.

 

Stressful times... yes

But so far so good. Actually preparing yup have to move again within the month.

I like success stories. Makes me feel better about my move. Thank you!!