Hello from a newbie...sort of

Hi all,
I haven't had a marine tank in almost 20 years. But I figured it was time to start a reef tank. I started with a 29 gallon and 45 lbs of LR. Then picked up 80 lbs more, and moved everything into a 70 gal and added 100lbs of live sand. Later I added 3 pieces of hammer coral, plate coral, 1 carpet anemone , 1 red bubble tip anemone, 1 yellow watchman goby, 1 flame angel, 1 purple tang, 2 tomato clowns, 1 royal gramma, 2 cleaner shrimp, and finally 1 lawn mower blenny. (not all at once,LOL)
My question I should have asked before buying the live sand is,how do I clean it?

 

Welcome to 3reef

Save your money on the live sand and buy dry sand, you get more sand for your money and most of the bacteria is inactive/dead in the live sand. Just get a cup or two from an active tank to see the new sand.

 

When I first started my saltwater tank I was concerned about this too. Because in my freshwater tanks I could obviously vacuum the gravel. But I was concerned about sucking up sand with the siphon. But for me, I noticed that my sand bed is always very clean. So now when I do water changes, I try to pick up stuff that I see on the sand bed, but its usually not very much(if any at all). When I add water back in I try to let the water flush stuff out from the live rock, and let my HOB skimmer pick up the particles.

 

Welcome to 3reef.

 

Hello and welcome to 3reef

 

welcome to 3 reef! where are you from? to keep my sand clean i have a clean up crew of crabies and snails and every secnd week i vacuum during water change. good flow also helps to keep "stuff" in suspension so that it really never hits the sand!

Good luck

 

Welcome to 3 reef

if you mean cleaning the live sand before adding it to your tank?
you dont need to, if you clean it with freshwater, you will kill off most if not all of the things you paid extra money for in there

Steve

 

Thank you all

I'm going to get some hermit crabs, and turbo snails. Any other suggestions?
Thank you in advance