Using my sandbed from old to new tank?

[toytech]

I rinsed and saved most of my old sand from my last tank to use on my current tank as well as bleaching all my liverock and dried it because I wasn't setting up my new tank for almost 2 years . Now its set up nitrates seem to be an issue that ive never had before and im inclined to think its the sand and rock , even though I cleaned everything as much as I could I had nitrates with no fish in the tank for months and still do .

[corpusse]

I always reuse sand. Having moved my garden eel tank I had well over 300lbs of sand I wasn't going to just throw away. That being said I treat old sand exactly the same as new sand. New sand is hell to rinse. Old sand is no different. I rinse it in the sink or outside with the hose if the weather is nice. Lots and lots and lots of tap water. Then rinsed in ro then salt water then in the tank and cloudy like new sand despite the massive rinsing it's rarely enough. If you want to seed the sand keep a cup before you rinse it and add that to the top but imo it's not needed.