Did I kill my live sand?

Hi everyone.

Quick question...

In my haste in setting up my new tank, I placed my live sand in FIRST, then added my 25 gallons of distilled water (not thinking), then after around 3 hours, added the salt. 3 days later, I added 12ish lbs of live rock from the LFS.

Would the bacteria on the live sand have died in those 3 hours of being submerged in fresh distilled water? If so, what do I do now? Do I need to go buy more live sand, or will the live rock be enough to culture the tank in the event that the live sand is... (dead?) ??

 

the bacteria in the sand isnt techincally "live". i mean the bag has probably been sitting in a wearhouse for the past 6 months. i put my "live sand" in, then filled with fresh, THEN added salt later, and my tank is just fine.

 

it is fine... most of the bacteria can live in both salt and freshwater. Any die off will be recolonized by the live rock

 

if it was live sand, the bacteria was alive. i don't know if three hours in fresh water will kill it or not. i doubt it enjoyed it. However, your tank will be fine. if you killed the bacteria, it might just take a little longer to cycle. since you added the live rock, the sand will become "live" again after a while.

 

+1 with Dingo you will be fine.