Dirty Sand

[LSUtiger]

Hello. I recently set up a 7G bow and added LR. My mistake was not rinsing the LR in a separate bucket of salt-water before putting it in the tank. Now, the sand has lots of debris from the rocks. It has started to decay or disintegrate, so it is now a fine powder. I can still see it on the sand though. There is nothing in the tank yet other than the LR and whatever came in on the rocks. I have lots of bugs on the front of the glass. Will this debris eventually disappear or get eaten by the bugs that come in the detrivore kit and/or the crabs or snails that I get as my clean-up crew? Or, should I "start over" by emptying the tank into a separate bucket, removing the sand (at least the top layer where the debris is) and start over? I want the sand to be clean, and I don't mind starting over if that is what it takes. I could re-use the water and most of the sand to where I probably wouldn't have to re-cycle. I'm hoping someone out there has been through this before and can tell me what they did. Thanks for any help.

 

Mark

[lil reef]

I wouldn't bother starting over. If anything just siphon off the stuff. If you have pods on the glass already chances are you also have quite a few in your SB. If I were you I would try to leave the sandbed intact. Your going to have all kinds of different cooties in different layers of the sand.

[bautin2]

Tiger,

 

I'm a fellow LSU'er. I was lucky when putting the LR in my newly-formed nano to not break too much of it. However, in my 55 gallon LR/fish only (forgot the neat-o nano lingo acronym for it), I had chunks of LR all over the place. Siphoning out works pretty well. The gargantuan hermit that I have in there is always reaking havoc, turning over rocks, etc. so I doubt my problem will soon end. Anyways, let me know how it turns out. Like I said, I'm starting my nano now also, we could possibly swap some coral later on. Peace...

 

b

[hhasty79]

Siphon it off or just ignore it. I'd siphon anything really nasty that might be contributing a lot of ammonia, but leave the rest. Good yummies for your hitchhiking worms and stuff. You can get a sand cleaning critter or two later to make it all white and pristine, if you like.

[LSUtiger]

thanks for the replies everyone. bautin2, I'm with ya on Henderson for Heisman! Some game huh? I'll post some pics when I start getting some stuff in the tank, and then maybe we can swap some frags. In case ya don't know, there is a Louisiana reef club on yahoo. Most of the people seem to be between BR and New Orleans. Here's the link:

 

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/brreefclub/

 

Mark