Tbass3574 Posted January 24, 2016 Share Posted January 24, 2016 Hello all, so I've been out of the hobby for about a year now, and have an old 8 gallon biocube sitting around that I'm going to start back up. My main questions are that when I took down this tank nearly a year ago I got rid of all the livestock, but never emptied it, so it's sat around filled with water, 10# of live rock and the sand that was in it. I have all the equipment I need to start the tank up, besides emptying it and cleaning it extensively, I'm wondering is there anything I need to do to the rock and sand that's sat around in stagnant water for a year? I know it's not going to be considered live rock anymore, so I will have to seed it with some new live rock, as for the sand, can it be salvaged or should I toss it altogether? Thanks in advance, any and all help is appreciated! Link to comment
Simulated Fish Posted January 24, 2016 Share Posted January 24, 2016 Hello all, so I've been out of the hobby for about a year now, and have an old 8 gallon biocube sitting around that I'm going to start back up. My main questions are that when I took down this tank nearly a year ago I got rid of all the livestock, but never emptied it, so it's sat around filled with water, 10# of live rock and the sand that was in it. I have all the equipment I need to start the tank up, besides emptying it and cleaning it extensively, I'm wondering is there anything I need to do to the rock and sand that's sat around in stagnant water for a year? I know it's not going to be considered live rock anymore, so I will have to seed it with some new live rock, as for the sand, can it be salvaged or should I toss it altogether? Thanks in advance, any and all help is appreciated! If your firm on keeping the rock do a acid dip. If you can't do an acid dip then use bleach and if you can't do a dip with bleach... Use vinager. Dip for about 10 minutes or tell the bubbles stop. Then rinse with water and some overnight. Do another rinse and let it air dry for about 3 days. As for the tank do a vinager bath and scrub. You should be to go after that Link to comment
Tbass3574 Posted January 24, 2016 Author Share Posted January 24, 2016 Thanks! Appreciate it, I'll bleach it and let the rock lay then seed it with some live rock? How about the sand?? Link to comment
Tbass3574 Posted January 25, 2016 Author Share Posted January 25, 2016 Bump, anyone have advice for what to do with the sand? Rinse and wash it or just start over with new live sand? Link to comment
FlowLikeWater Posted January 25, 2016 Share Posted January 25, 2016 IMO its much easier and cleaner to start with fresh sand. You could rinse it out, but it will take multiple rinses before getting anywhere. Link to comment
cruiZe Posted January 25, 2016 Share Posted January 25, 2016 When I upgraded my 15g to 40b I reused the sand and spent hours rinsing it. It's doable if you want to save the money- I did tap water first, until it was completely rinsing clear, then RO and vinegar, then RODI and let it sit and rinse again. Maybe overkill, but that's gonna be some NASTY SAND you pump out of there. Link to comment
MBS Posted January 26, 2016 Share Posted January 26, 2016 You may be surprised with the vitality of the rock. I had a frag system running which used 50 lbs of live rock rubble. We had a fire in our bulding in March 2015. We lost all power to the system and there was no climate control (heat or AC) in that area anymore. Temps were as low as 50 and as high as 90 in that area. The system was comletetely down, no curculation, no siimming... Nothing from about March 7 - November 1st. At that time i pulled the rock from the stagnant system (it never dried but evaporation had decreased the water it was sitting in be at least 30% - with the corresponding salinity increase) and moved it to a new system. The new system started up and the nitrogen cycle was still active. I let it run 2 weeks just to be safe, but i never saw an ammonia, nitrite, or nitrate spike. Been stocked with fish/corals since Nov 20th with no issues. I also had a 8 gallon nuvo which was shut down by the fire. That one sat covered and damp on my porch all summer. My son took it over in november.. Rinsed it all (rock/sand) with clean salt water several times and let it run for a month with no livestock. Had some foaming in the filter box which eventually cleared itself up. Did another water change earlier in the month and added fish/coral and all is running well. Point is... Bacteria are extremely resilient. Dont count them out just because the aystem has been down for what you consider a long time. Back when i was in college i had a professor in a microbiology class point out that "if you took a shower in boiling hot water for 2 hours you would still have more bacteria on your skin then there are people in the world". This is true and it speaks volumes aa to why bacteria are so ubiquitous in the environment... They are far hardier then you'd expect. I would expect them to be there in your rock. It may take a little to wake them up so i'd proceed as if they were gone but don't be surprised if they are not. Link to comment
Simulated Fish Posted January 26, 2016 Share Posted January 26, 2016 Thanks! Appreciate it, I'll bleach it and let the rock lay then seed it with some live rock? How about the sand?? IMO its much easier and cleaner to start with fresh sand. You could rinse it out, but it will take multiple rinses before getting anywhere. I would definitely toss the sand, if you must use it rinses the crap out of it and then rinses it some more! Link to comment
Tbass3574 Posted January 26, 2016 Author Share Posted January 26, 2016 Great, yeah I'll just toss the sand and start fresh! I plan on getting already cycled water from a LFS to cut down on the cycle time. Plan is to put cycled water, sand and rock, and in the back chemi pure elite, purigen and eventually some macro algae in the next couple days and hopefully add some livestock in a couple weeks Link to comment
FlowLikeWater Posted January 26, 2016 Share Posted January 26, 2016 The water wont have much, if any effect on cycle time. The bacteria is found in the substrate, on established live rock, the tank walls etc. Link to comment
Simulated Fish Posted January 27, 2016 Share Posted January 27, 2016 Great, yeah I'll just toss the sand and start fresh! I plan on getting already cycled water from a LFS to cut down on the cycle time. Plan is to put cycled water, sand and rock, and in the back chemi pure elite, purigen and eventually some macro algae in the next couple days and hopefully add some livestock in a couple weeks Did the LFS tell you they will give you "cycled water"? If so I would look around for another store, or another sales person. "cycled water" means their old tank water from the last water change. Not something I would want IMO Link to comment
MLS_Reef Posted January 28, 2016 Share Posted January 28, 2016 If the sand didn't go black 100% water change and start the cycle Link to comment
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