The Puffer Forum

How do I get my sand "Live".

Your LR will seed the sand

Yup, + 1 to that.

xrayjeeper83 wrote:Your LR will seed the sand

Really! YAY!

yeah, store bought "live sand" is basically a gimmick. as im sure you know, beneficial bacteria needs water movement and ammonia to stay "live". bags of "live sand" lack the movement, but im sure will get their share of ammonia from die off in the bag lol. best bet is aragonite sand as a buffer, and your live rock will seed it like mentioned above

jus85411 wrote:yeah, store bought "live sand" is basically a gimmick. as im sure you know, beneficial bacteria needs water movement and ammonia to stay "live". bags of "live sand" lack the movement, but im sure will get their share of ammonia from die off in the bag lol.

I'm not so certain I believe that 100% anymore. I am now starting to think that "live sand" in a bag could actually be "live sand". It would be quicker to become so than inert products, but slower than getting 100% live from a friend or an established tank.

Anyone I know who has put the "live sand" in their tank has had cloudy water and an ammonia bloom.
I was going to conduct an experiment with it in a nano tank with just base rock (no animals), and see if and how long it would take to cycle, but I decided against it. Maybe one day, but I have too many nano tanks right now and need to consolidate.

sevenyearnight wrote:Anyone I know who has put the "live sand" in their tank has had cloudy water and an ammonia bloom.

That's correct and exactly what should happen. I'm waiting to hear back on a second opinion regarding "live sand" in a bag and I'll post the reply here when it comes through.

Actually I agree with both of you. Live sand in a bag is no doubt live when bagged. Die-off will be linear and not solely species-specific. Some of those good bugs are likely to be facultative anaerobes and can withstand the relative anoxia pretty well for some period. I personally would be happier if the bags were dated and had "use by" dates. If it is fresh, it could be pretty good. if it is old, it will require some time to set up significant aerobes. I would never use "live sand" from the bagged product in a tank with inhabitants, even if they were inverts (live rock) as the effect could snowball and damage desirable critters already introduced.

But it could be better than nothing as a first inoculation. Once the ammonia/nitrite spikes have passed, adding live rock should speed up the adaptation process of the rock and its inverts (pods) without as much die-off as from "good" (cured) live rock. I have never tested this either and would like to see some data from such trials. I the live rock is un-cured, it could well speed the curing process, as the now-live sand can eat some ammonia and speed the curing process. But it would have to be tested, and the real age of the "live sand" would be important and very hard to get.

yeah i said it somewhere before that someone asked about setting up a tank and supplies and live sand. i said there could be one benefit, you already have ammonia in there lol. but its probably more cost efficient to get the good sand and a bottle of ammonia, market shrimp or other food to cycle with. you figure after collection, bagging, shipping and all the good "retail" stuff that goes on before it gets to a store(especially in a large corporation) i would think it would take at least two or three weeks to get in and on the shelf. i also dont know if the stuff is rotated and how long bags would sit there if no one buys it before the old are thrown out or whatever. i could be completely wrong on the time it takes to get from point a to point b for the bags of sand, thats just what i kind of assume

I was referring to established tank sand by "Live Sand". I wouldn't trust a bag to be live.

greenspottedlover wrote:I was referring to established tank sand by "Live Sand".

From an established disease free tank is always the best route.

greenspottedlover wrote: I wouldn't trust a bag to be live.

What about dormant sand?

Dr. Ron Shimek on live rock long term storage:

Under these conditions, virtually all of the bacterial species will have survivors, and for many of them, there will be essentially no mortality, provided the salinity was too far from normal reef salinity. Under cool/cold conditions, the bacteria will go dormant, and many will form spores that are quite resistant to other problems; as a result most bacteria will survive quite a long time.

I am waiting to hear if this is also true of live sand from commercial establishments but I have the feeling that it holds true. That is why you get an ammonia spike when adding "live bagged sand" to an aquarium, and the beneficial bacteria emerges out its spore form. This is pure speculation and guess work until I hear back.

But those rocks are stored in open containers, not sealed bags.

And not all bugs have spore forms - consider FW nitrification bacteria, and most SW forms.

Dormancy w/controlled cooling and ambient temp storage in closed bags are totally unrelated conditions. But some potentially useful bugs may well survive. There are many many species of bacteria involved in a "mature" tank. The DSB denitrification bugs are better w/o much O2 if any. But really deep anoxia can permit some nasty anaerobes to flourish. That is why I prefer plenums over DSB, it is much safer due to more controlled anaerobic conditions w/o deep anoxia. Working on those systems requires work w/ORP probes and I gave that up when I left the labs. You could likely operate your reef best with ORP monitoring and control, but I have given up such things myself. I have paid off all my debts to society working at that level. 25 years was enough.

"But those rocks are stored in open containers, not sealed bags.

Yes, but do the bacterial spores need the air to survive? I thought only the emergent live bacteria needed some form of O2 to survive.

he really didn't come back with a direct answer :/

I don't recommend, and have never recommended, that anybody purchase the bagged so-called "live sand" at all. All that is in it is bacteria, and bacteria colonize a new bed in short order without any extra purchase.

...when you have live rock to seed the sand. I agree with that, but if you are going with dry rock and wanted to start totally clean? Then again you won't get the goodies that turnover and aerate your sand bed and help develop that food chain in your system.

I like this quote though:

On the other hand, if you have nothing else to spend the money on, bagged "live sand" is as good a way to empty your wallet as any other.

=)