Info needed - cleaning old sand

[Dez]

Originally Posted by Myka

It will probably leech nitrate and phosphate, so it depends how much you care about that. A perfectionist would "cook" the sand in a similar way to how you cook live rock. Many people will just rinse well and re-use. Personally, I would not use used sand without cooking it as I do not enjoy algae blooms.

I used 10 year old sand from my friend's reef and have never had an algae bloom. He's had an established system for 10 years (and it's by no means a pristine tank) running a deep sand bed. He decided to go to a shallow sand bed and yanked a bunch of sand out. It went into his backyard and I got some and just rinsed thoroughly with tap water and my full sps system has been running just over a year with no algae blooms.

So what you are saying is that my algae bloom hasn't happened yet? I am kind of a perfectionist (at least I think I am) but I'm also very cheap, so free was better than buying sand.

I also used 10 plus year old live rock.

Maybe it's because I'm running ULNS that I haven't had an algae bloom?

I think it's fairly safe to say from my own experience just rinse several times with water until it runs clearish and you should be okay.