im changing sand but can i use none live sand?

[pepper815]

will it start a cycle...the awesome dudes at petco r giving me a 5 gallon bucket of sand for free!

[Hop]

Was it in a tank at one time?

[mr.reef24]

before I would answer I was wondering why are you removing the sand in there now and you can use non-living sand but it will probably take a month or two to populate with organism's from the live rock.

mr.reef24

[pepper815]

it was in a tank.....and because i have some black sand in there now and its not the nice lookin stuff its the kind the turns brown and stays brown...its an eyesore!

i was gonna leave just a lil at the bottom of the tank to keep some of the organisms from the black sand!

[Hop]

Nothing good ever comes from used sand. You can try rinsing it for hours, let it completely dry while spread out and finish it up with 1-2 good ro/di rinses, but ultimately it is probably loaded with po3 and no3, not to mention other things you don't want.

[pepper815]

well i heard boiling it kills off everything...then i would just let it pick up all the organisms from my tank!

would this work?

[Hop]

Nope... it absorbs the po4 and the no3, boiling it only kills stuff and allows a nice medium to absorb more crud The rinsing, drying and rerinsing with RO/DI is the best option.

This is why live sand is such a gimmick Better to use fresh, dry sand and then a scoop of sand from an established tank.

[pepper815]

o ok well its been out of the tank for a while...its just been hangin around for a few months!

[Hop]

That makes it even worse

[Hop]

You'll need to rinse it for hours, dry it spread out on a sheet or something very think and then rinse it over and over again in ro/di water. But I still wouldn't do it. I'm speaking from experience here

[pepper815]

aww ur such a downer! haha just kidding haha ya ive never done it before so id rather not haha!

[Hop]

No worries... It will save you the massive algae outbreak later.

[pepper815]

haha thanks!

[Loverotties]

Just use new sand!