[cvrle1]

A friend of mine has a reef aquarium, but it kinda crashed on him. His fish died misteriusly one night but all the water parameters are good. There are no predators in the tank, so tha one is out of the question. This happened coupel of months ago, and ever since then he didn't buy any fish. Since then he did little work on it, and lights stayed mostly off.

I was thinking of getting his LS and mixing it with new one I was going to put in my aquarium, but I don't want to go through same ordeal as he did because of his sand. If I do take it from him, could I somehow wash it out completely and just add it in. I know this will kill critters that are in it, but his sand look dead as it is so I don't think there is anything alive anyways.

Also he has some LR as well that he will give me as well if I want it. Same deal with the rock. It has some coraline algae on it, but I don't think there is anything alive in them anymore like worms, pods...

Main reason why I would take his sand and rocks is because he will break his system down, and I need more sand for my system (which isn't started yet) so if I can use it, insteaad of buying new sand from the store, it will save me some money.

When I did water tests on the system this is what I got. PH is at 8.2 Nitrate and Nitrite at 0, Ammonia was a more than 0 (can't remember exactly how high but nothing too high), Calcium is at 420

Just by looking at the parameters it seems like the tank is going through cycle again. Not sure if it is or not.

And one more thing I just rememebered, there is a tigertail cuke that seem to be fine. It was there even before the fish died. I'm guessing if it survived , and is still alive so that tank cant be in that bad of a shape, i don't think at least

Thanks for the help.

[Bughead]

I had a friend who had to break down his 300 gal two weeks before I was ready to set up my 180. He gave me all his sand (6 full 5 gal buckets!), but I had no where to put it. So by the time I was ready to use it, it smelled like a rotten pier.

The washing of the sand was simple, but quite labor intense. Hoist one bucket of dirty sand to wheelbarrow, take it to the curb. Take a large wire mesh collander, fill it 3/4 full with sand. Rinse with the hose with a strong spray attachment over another small bucket. The sand will sift through, leaving larger particles in the collander. Have another large clean bucket to the side that you transfer your cleaned sand to. I you want to keep the large particles, dump them into your clean sand bucket. Otherwise discard them. You may want to re-rinse your sand if it still smells bad or looks blackish. However, if the sand has been dried out awhile, like say a month or so, one rinsing should be fine. At any rate, add the new sand slowly--about a 1/2" or so 3-4 times a week.

The rock should be no problem. It's OK if it's "dead", just rinse it and put it in the tank. It will become" live" in a matter of months.

OH, I just saw you said your system isn't started yet. All the better. Just put in your cleaned sand and fill the tank, or the other way around. The tank should cycle in about 3 days with your live rock. I wouldn't worry to much about cleaning the rock, the die-off will just cycle and there you are.

[cvrle1]

Thanks for the help. I will do what you sugested. Now lets just hope that I have better luck thank my friend did.

Thanks again