Change out my sand?

Ok, so I just moved to a new apartment and I have to move my tank over tomorrow night. I currently have a shallow sand bed in my tank and have had some algae growing on the top of it, but have been able to fight it back a bit with water changes.

My question is- do you think it is worth it to change out the sandbed when I move it or would it be just as effective to "wash" it and reuse it? I've moved plenty of tanks before and have done both options, but can't say I've noticed a difference one way or another.

 

If this is a nano tank get a new bag of sand and seed it with some of the existing sand. I moved plenty of nanos to know that TONs of detritus collects, a new bag of live or dry sand is just not sooooo expensive. If this was a larger tank I would rinse all sand in SW until as clear as I could tolerate and call it a day while saving some money.

 

Yea, its my 29g Biocube. Its just annoying cause I looked at my LFS yesterday and all they have is the live sand for $30 for 20lbs. Such a rip-off IMO, but I really don't have time to order online and wait for a shipment.

 

Then just rinse it with SW if you can to preserve the bacteria as much as possible, it'll be fine. I posted the best case scenario, but plenty of people have moved dirty sand beds without issue, some do have problems though.

 

Yea, I think thats what I'm going to do...I'll have plenty of extra since I'm doing a 50% water change during the move process. I may buy some extra later and just add it over time to make the bed a just a little deeper

 

Honestly, you could move a tank that size without disturbing the sand at all. With only the sand and enough water to keep it wet, I've found 29g tanks plenty easy to handle. You might want to start vacuuming the sand periodically to prevent detritus build-up.

 

I recently started vacuuming my sandbed and already there is a noticeable difference in my fight with cyano. It is a bit of a pain to do but has been well worth it.

 

Do you recommend vacuuming the sand bed while doing a WC? Mine gets pretty nasty looking. I would prefer it to be squeaky clean, but have heard differing opinions on this.

 

I vacuum once a week when doing water changes.

 

Any recommendations as to what type or brand of vacuum to get or are they all the same?