Moving deep sand bed to new tank

I was just reading another thread and saw something that really got my attention!!!!!!! I just recently bought a 90 gallon bow front and I am getting ready to switch everything in my 55 gallon over. I just read that stirring up a dsb is bad!!!!! I was really hoping I could move my current deep sand bed to the new tank but now Im terrified of what might happen. I have about a six inch dsb in my current tank and probably $200 invested in this sand. Do I really have to trash will it cause huge problems if I move it to the new tank???????? I really need some advice on this.....

 

it really sucks but the risks are too high to recomend trying to use it without some serious efforts expended to sterilize the sand for reuse.

I would get new sand here and only go to 1" to 2" depth. If you want a DSB then create a sump/fuge and put it in the fuge.
Sand

 

$200? Thats alot of sand to waste. Why can't you just set it out in the sun to dry then rinse it with water change water? Once its rinsed & dry, store it in some covered 5g buckets. I used my leftover salt buckets. If not, at least take it and thow it back out on the beach or a channel someplace.

 

Does the lenght of time I had this tank established play into this? This tank has only had livestock in it for about 6 months and the livestock load has only been 2 clowns and 1 lawnmower blenny. A reef cleaner crew, a couple of mushrooms and zoas. I really don't want to start over if there is a chance it will be fine....

 

yes, it is completely dependent upon the concentration of bacteria in your sand bed. I agree with seabass; you can kill it all,, wash it, let it dry, then start over from scratch

If you dont do this then you run a risk of introducing substantial amounts of toxic chemicals into your water (i think it is HCl? or HSO4? or something like that)