Many hobbyists want to find out how to add live sand to their aquariums. So many personal messages were received that I thought it would be a good idea to add a short document that describes the method that has worked for me each time I have had to add live sand to a tank. I am not saying that it is the only method of course, but it is one that has done it for me each time I have had to add live sand to an aquarium.
Hobbyists' main concerns seems to be that when they receive live sand, they do not quite know how to handle the incoming shipment and how to get the live sand into their aquariums without clouding up the entire aquarium (sometimes for an extended period of time).
Live sand may arrive in various ways:
- in a styro
- packed
- unpacked
- in buckets
- in bags
- and other ways yet that I may not have run into.
Regardless of how the sand arrives, the method I suggest is the following:
- Prepare the tank to receive the live sand. This involves a few steps depending on your particular situation.
- If you are going to use a plenum you will need to construct that and that means that the tank will have to be emptied or be empty so the grids can be placed in the tank. This may be practical if you set up a new tank and if you are a believer in adding a plenum. The present trend however is not to add one because plenums tend to become repositories for nutrients and other unwanted material.
If you are not using a plenum, which is what most hobbyists nowadays do and what I personally recommend, then you may wish to check how the rock is placed and make a decision as to whether you are going to:
- place sand around the rock
- place the rocks on top of the sand
If you are not using a plenum and you are not placing the rock on top of the sand, adding live sand is real easy. Just follow the procedure below:
- fill plastic bags with the sand
- hold the top of the bags closed
- lower the bags into the aquarium and bring them close to the bottom
- tip the bag sideways
- gently, very gently, let the sand flow out
- as you continue to do so and move from one area to the the other, you will soon have live sand everywhere
- you can now even it out, again gently, so the thickness is about even everywhere
- the reason for the gently is to make as little sand dust as possible so you do not cloud up your tank
if you are not using a plenum but wish the rock to be on top of the sand then you will need to add the sand as described above and after you have done so, lift up the rock off the sand so sand goes underneath them.
this will involve keeping some sand so that after you move the rocks up you can add a little more where required to even everything out
if you have a lot of live rock in the tank, you may need to keep some out of the tank for some time so that you can lift up the bottom layers and then replace the other layers back on top
there is no problem with leaving rock outside of the tank for a while as long as you keep it moist. Do so by, for instance, putting it inside garbage bags, or lay it down on a piece of plastic and spray it with saltwater from time to time to keep it moist (I like this method because, often, if you have bristleworms in the rock or Mantis shrimp, they will actually come out and you will be able to remove them (the same applies to Stone crabs as they will move and you will be able to get them off the rock and by the same token out of your tank). As such this is a real good way to clean your rock and rid it of unwanted life forms!
If you are going to use a plenum, the procedure is basically the same but you will need to empty the whole tank. Then follow the procedure for adding the sand, then replace the rock. To keep the rock moist, use the method described above
the key to getting it right is to use the plastic bag method, lower them to the bottom of the aquarium, then tip them over and pour out the sand as gently as you can. This will avoid the majority of the cloudiness, if not all. In the Jo-Bert method, described in articles in the Saltwater Library of our web site, no cloudiness occurred because we emptied the bags of sand ever so slowly. There is nothing complicated to it as you have surmised for sure. Just handle the sand real gently and you will not end up with a tank that remains clouded for days.
This is just a basic procedure to get those unfamiliar with what to do started. I hope it serves that purpose for those who are looking at adding live sand for the first time to their aquariums.
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