Adding Dry Sand to living reef?

[SalahiAndSon]

Hi all,
I have a 75 gal. reef tank with about 10 gal in the sump. 80+lbs of live
rock and 50+lbs of live sand. Its home to 2 bubbletips anenomes and a tube
along with a purple tang,clown,foxface,goby and hawkfish. Sad bed is almost
3 inches in alot of places but much less in others. I would like to add some
more sand to even it out and make it a bit deeper. Most people recommend
adding live sand but all the live sand I can get localy looks nohing like
the sand I have in there now. I have about 75lbs of the original sand I used
in this tank still dry. I would like to use it. Can I just wet it down with
current tank water and add a bit at a time or do I need to possibly cure
some in a bucket and sal****er for a few weeks like with live rocks? I have
had success adding dry sand before and avoided getting alot of dust kicked
up but never tried with so many creatures living in the tank. My main
concern is kicking up dust and that somehow causeing the life in here
distress. Or creating a major amonia spike.
Any advice would be great.
thanks
G.

[George]

"SalahiAndSon" > wrote in message
...
> Hi all,
> I have a 75 gal. reef tank with about 10 gal in the sump. 80+lbs of live rock
> and 50+lbs of live sand. Its home to 2 bubbletips anenomes and a tube along
> with a purple tang,clown,foxface,goby and hawkfish. Sad bed is almost 3 inches
> in alot of places but much less in others. I would like to add some more sand
> to even it out and make it a bit deeper. Most people recommend adding live
> sand but all the live sand I can get localy looks nohing like the sand I have
> in there now. I have about 75lbs of the original sand I used in this tank
> still dry. I would like to use it. Can I just wet it down with current tank
> water and add a bit at a time or do I need to possibly cure some in a bucket
> and sal****er for a few weeks like with live rocks? I have had success adding
> dry sand before and avoided getting alot of dust kicked up but never tried
> with so many creatures living in the tank. My main concern is kicking up dust
> and that somehow causeing the life in here distress. Or creating a major
> amonia spike.
> Any advice would be great.
> thanks
> G.
>

You can add new sand to your existing live sand as long as you clean it first
with non-chlorinated water, and mix it up with the existing sand. The microbes
in the existing sand will colonize the new sand fairly quickly. If you can get
live sand, that works even better, but in my opinion it is an unnecessary
expense.

[RicSeyler]

I read an article/or website a while back that made sense to me,
When adding new sand, pile it up on a corner of the tank and let sit
for a week or so for bacteria, THEN spread it out. This keeps the critters
in the rest of the sandbed surface area happy till the new sand gets seeded.

And repeat till you get the depth you want.


--
Ric Seyler