live sand, out of water

"wolf" " wrote in message
k.net...
no, im relocating my tank, i siphoned it up on the 28th, im
wondering how long i have until i need to start worrying about
losing the bio in it.


Like sitting in a bucket? I wouldn't give it more than a day. Perhaps
not even that. After that, the bacteria and what ever other living
material in the sand will begin dying, and will result in an ammonia
explosion when re-introduced. If the container you placed it in was
filtered, heated, and subjected to water changes, you might be fine.
g

b

honestly, that just didnt happen. And im more concerned for any starfish
that got vacuumed up with it, and tube worms that were in the sand that will
eventually reseed when placed back in the tank.

i have 2 containers

one 5 gallon bucket with about 40lbs sugarfine marine sand, and that set out
for over 2 days, after being cycled for years, i decided to finally hook it
back into the system instead of waiting, no ammonia exploaion, infact, not
even a noticable increase.

this bag is onlly about 20lbs aragonite at most, and it still wet as tank
water is still inside it.

i am curious about teh starfish and tubeworms.

ok, about teh bacteria. first of all, the anerobic bacteria, what happens
to this when you remove the sand from teh tank? the sand was completely
mixed up, better than a cement mixer could have, so i would thnk alrady that
the bacterias were still down in the sand. ok
teh sand that is currently on top, was probably the anerobic sand anyway.
So, when placed back into the tank, shouldnt there be a majority of anerobic
bacteria in it already?

and what about the worry of ammonia, is that comning from the detritus?
well, 95% of teh detritus is already gone from teh cleaning out fo the tank,
i had to scoop the sand with a piece of flat glass out of teh tank, it had
plenty of time to shed its detritus. right now the nitrate is near 40ppm.
which is mainly from the uncared for water, that is slowly being changed
out, but there is no nitrite from teh first 5 gallon bucket of sand that i
just readded to the circulation of the systsem. So, apparently this sand
can go out of water for some time...

Can someone who knows about the distribution of the anerobic vs. aeorbic
bacterias further has this up to see if my sand is really dying? the only
problem i see is the temperature, cause believe me, its still not getting
any oxygen, hehe, so its still anerobic down there.


"Billy" wrote in message
...

"wolf" " wrote in message
k.net...
no, im relocating my tank, i siphoned it up on the 28th, im wondering how
long i have until i need to start worrying about losing the bio in it.


Like sitting in a bucket? I wouldn't give it more than a day. Perhaps not
even that. After that, the bacteria and what ever other living material in
the sand will begin dying, and will result in an ammonia explosion when
re-introduced. If the container you placed it in was filtered, heated, and
subjected to water changes, you might be fine. g

b