Washing Old Sand

[1234-fishy-freind]

Hi guys

I dont know if any of you remember but I moved house just over a month ago and put my tank in the garage because I was going to be upgrading, but due to finance, the upgrade isnt going to happen as soon as I hoped. So I will be moving my tank into the house.

Anyway, my queston is, I have a large tub of sand which I took out the tank when I moved it and never put it back in.
The sand has been sat in a salt bucket for about 7 weeks and smells really bad and has gone from white, to grey.
I tried washing it today and the water which was comeing out of the bucket was black.

Is the sand safe to use after a few more washes or would it be better to just buy some more?


josh

 

[Anguilla82]

considerring the relatively small cost involved, i'd probably just buy new, as the old stuff will be choked full of dead organisms producing masses of nitrates, nitrites, ammonia. you'd suffer with loads of initial algae issues i would suspect if u used the old sand.

 

[seffieuk]

bin in

Seffie x

 

[1234-fishy-freind]

Its binned now!

I didnt think there was any real chance of saving the sand after so long haha

At least I have plenty of live rock that will be able to turn the new sand live again

josh

 

[ben1987]

Yor tank is FOWLR isnt it??

If it is then new sand all the way. New sand can take up calc/mag which can be an issue if swapping the sand in a reef. Mind u id rather have to buffer those two a lot than deal with the algae and crap out of old dead stuff.