Old Sand
 

Life is so resilient..

It's been over 5 years since I ran a salt water tank. I used to have a reef 120g /w 33g refugeum and a seperate 55g. I sold all my equipment because I moved and did not have a place to setup one or have the time to dedicate to it.

The only thing I did not sell was my sand which I put in a cheap canadian tire tub and it sat in my parents garage on the cement for 5 years.

3 days ago a set up a 15g tank in my garage and yesterday dumped in a lot of the old sand. Didn't clean the sand I just dumped it in as is and today I already see stuff appearing.

Life is amazing!

http://i.imgur.com/c2AaLl.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/FzOa2l.jpg

That's cool, although surprising how quickly things bounced back? What sort of "stuff" are you seeing?

- Brad

IME, you'll regret the no rinse later on down the line...
Been there, done that.

Still, very cool that after 5 years there is still some life.
Amazing really.

i use old sand often and the biggest problem i have found is silt... i just run a hang on filter with a sponge that seems to do the trick... just stir the sand a bit once in a while to raise the silt...

I'm amazed the sand could even be wet after 5 years let alone have life in it. Was it covered?

And you've never had gas buld up in the sand after the fact?
Terrible, unexplainable algae break outs or nasty Cyano?

Come on...lol
Live sands filtrations capacity is not infinite.