Thinking About Shutting Down

[dare2dv8]

I hate to admit it but I'm contemplating shutting down my tank as life has just turned too busy to really enjoy the hobby. I plan on picking it back up in the future so I'm not sure how to proceed...

I'm not decided if I want to sell the whole works or just the livestock and store everything else for future use someday.

If I was to keep tank, sand, and live rock does anyone have any experience/advice on how to properly store it. I have about 140 lbs of live rock which of course can be kept in tank - but I'm sure it's going to smell something awful. How long will it smell bad? I want to keep it in the garage but I have to keep all my family members happy at the same time. Sand would probably fill 3-4 five gallon buckets - anything I should know about storing the sand?

Any helpful suggestion would be most welcome.

[reefwars]

would personally toss your sand and start with fresh sand , cleaning it is a hassle and adding it will surely cause nutrient sinks

cheers

denny

[Coral Hoarder]

boil and leave your rock in freash water is best for geting it not to smelly
i would start with new sand dont keep the old stuff

[Dez]

I shut down for about 4 years. I stuck all of my live rock, well over 100lbs, in a smaller frag tank and just ran a pump and salt water in it for the full 4 years. It was in my basement out of the way in a corner. I had a float valve hooked up for top off straight to the city water. I didn't have heat in it. Then after 4 years I set up my tank with that rock and it is still great. My current tank is a full blown sps tank with no issues at all and it's been running for 4.5 years now.

[asylumdown]

+1 to the idea of tossing the sand. It's really not worth it to try and keep IMO.

As for storing the rock, I'd look in to ways of stripping rock like a bleach and muriatic acid treatment. After a process like that there wouldn't be anything left on it to smell, and you could just let it dry and store it in a box. You'd get the added benefit of that rock being good to go and free of organic material that could rot when you decide to set the tank back up again.

[crackedcorn]

I thought as long as sand was rinsed really well it could be re-used with no problems?

[hfp75]

I've rinsed mine and reused it.... Took a bit to get it all out & wash it but no problems.... Then I topped up with some more new stuff....

[crackedcorn]

That's what I plan to do, what's the easiest way to rinse clean sand??