fresoul Posted November 27, 2011 Share Posted November 27, 2011 I just was given a 38g reef tank skelton, It has not been used for about 3 years. The tank had sand and old coral and live rock in it. I have a couple of questions that I was not able to find answers to. Can I reuse the old sand, coral, and rocks? The sand is a corser variety, it there any benefit to using a finer sand? Can I use the chemicals, food and other items that came witht the tank. Should I clean everything with something other than water and a scrub sponge? Thanks for the help, Ill post pics of the build once it starts. Ted Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AquaJohn Posted November 27, 2011 Share Posted November 27, 2011 if the food and chems are 3 years old toss them. The sand and rock are fine. I would put the sand in a buck and run a hose in it till the water runs clear then dump it on a plastic tarp and let air dry when its dry add it to the cleaned aquarium. Then take the rocks and let them soak in a bucket of water then swoosh them around a bit till all the crud is out of them and the water is clear let them air dry add them to the tank, add salt to some ro/di water mix it for a while add it to the tank and go from there. there are tons of how to start a new tank on the site As for cleaning the tank it depends how bad it is If its bad I would use vinager and water then rinse a few times with clean water and let air dry. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AquaJohn Posted November 27, 2011 Share Posted November 27, 2011 if you use a sponge make sure it does not have some kind of cleaner built in. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fresoul Posted November 27, 2011 Author Share Posted November 27, 2011 Would it be better to add a little live rock or a little live sand? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Timfish Posted November 27, 2011 Share Posted November 27, 2011 +1 to what AquaJohn said. In addition I wouldn't set up a new system without using new live rock and new live sand. (You may already know this but if the live rock and live sand has been allowed to completely dried out or thouroghly washed in fresh water everything beneficial has been killed and for all intents and purposes is dead rock). Live rock adds a lot more than just the basic bacteria used for nitrification. Here's a quote from Delbeck and Sprung "With live rock it is possible to have ecosystem level complexity of food webs . . .". You can establish and maintain reef tanks without live rock but it will be much more difficult to establish the complexity that is the hallmark of a stable ecosystem. Also if your tank is acrylic before you add water you can use Novus 3 & 2 to buff out the inside. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AquaJohn Posted November 27, 2011 Share Posted November 27, 2011 ya know there are several ways to start a new tank via live,dead,or a mix of rock I would say read a few threads on it and decide there are + and - to both ways and only you can decide what would work best for you. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
innate1 Posted November 27, 2011 Share Posted November 27, 2011 you can use the dead rock and sand and then add any one of the bottled bacteria to make it live. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JasonJones Posted November 27, 2011 Share Posted November 27, 2011 Before you reuse anything, I would make sure the tank never had copper in it. You can buy or borrow a copper test kit and soak some of the sand and rock in water for a day or two and then test that water for copper. If it was run as a fish only tank before, copper may have been used. If all of that is fine, follow all the above advice. Wash everything very thoroughly, especially the rock. The rock is likely to contain lots of dead matter in it. I would probably cook the rocks for a few weeks to see how much junk is in them before I would add them to the tank. Here is a link on the process if you have never heard of this: http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?threadid=437342 Follow the above advice and research using live rock/sand versus dead. There are many pluses and minuses to both. Best of luck Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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