How To Turn Dry Sand into Live Sand - Saving a Ton of Money

Welcome to Simple Reefs. We are a very new website dedicated to showing you how you can have your very own slice of the ocean without breaking the bank. We are dedicated to taking the elitism out of the marine fishkeeping hobby and showing you that you can own a marine aquarium without the massive expensive and without the complicated jargon. This article forms part of our series on starting a simple, budget, reef. Today we are talking about turning dry sand into live sand.

Talking About Marine Aquarium Sand

We have discussed sand a lot on Simple Reefs over the past few weeks. We have looked at the pros and cons of having a sand bed and, also, showed you how you can save a ton of money by purchasing Dry Sand rather than Live Sand but what are the differences?

To quickly summarise, Dry Sand is exactly what it sounds like. It is sand that comes in a bag completely dry. It has no bacteria living in it, has not been in an aquarium recently, and is not suitable for using to start your aquarium’s cycle. We will have to make it live, ourselves.

Live Sand is the opposite. It is a type of sand that you purchase from a company like Carib Sea or Nature’s Ocean. The sand comes wet in a bag and contains massive amounts of nitrifying bacteria. When you add the sand to your aquarium, the bacteria will get to work removing ammonia from the water.

This will speed up our all important cycle which we will talk about more in an upcoming article. Live Sand claims to be instantly cycling, meaning you can add residents to your tank straight away. We debate that in our article on Can Live Sand Instantly Cycle and Aquarium? Advising patience and not following their instructions, regarding this.

Live Sand also comes at a huge premium. Costing over double the price of equivalent Dry Sand. It’s no wonder why they would make such bold claims. They definitely have the incentive to do it.

With all of that being said, Dry Sand remains the much better option when it comes to adding sand to your budget marine aquarium. Unless money isn’t a factor to you in any way, you should be opting for Dry Sand over Live Sand.

We debate this a lot more in our article on Should I Use Live Sand or Dry Sand? Feel free to check that out if you need more convincing or a more concise argument. But, now that we have our dry sand, how do we make it live? Well, the process is simple and there are a number of different ways. Before we do any of that, make sure you rinse your Dry Sand and, if you need some advice on how to add it to your tank, click the link to check out our article on doing just that.

We Can Use Live Rock

This might be the most simple way to do it. We simply add a piece of live rock to our aquarium with the dry sand. It doesn’t even need to be a huge piece, it just needs to come from a well established marine aquarium that is over 6 months old, at least.

Although Live Rock can be expensive, it does make this process very quick and very easy as live rock will cycle your tank rapidly and begin the process of making your dry sand live straight away. With that being said, there are a few caveats. If the rock is purchased online, it will need to go through a process known as curing. You also run the risk of introducing unwanted nasties and pests into your tank.

These creatures can hide deep within the rocks, only coming out once your tank is established. Live rock can introduce certain types of algae like bubble algae, as well, plunging your tank into chaos almost straight away. Like all things in marine aquarium ownership, quick always equals risky.

If this is the option you want to go with. Take a look at our article on Using Live Rock to Turn Dry Sand into Live Sand.

We Can Use Bottled Bacteria

This is by far the safest and most affordable method but, as with most things marine aquarium related, safe equals slow. Your patience, in this situation, however, will be rewarded with no pests and no unwanted algae. This process simply involves adding a bottle of starter bacteria to your aquarium and feeding it.

Starter nitrifying bacteria is affordable and safe. You just add it to the aquarium, following the instructions, and then feed it so that it will reproduce. Feeding the bacteria involves one of a few different methods that we will go into in its own article. Suffice to say, all of the methods involve introducing ammonia into the tank in the safest, most manageable way, possible.

The only cons with this method come from the suitability of the starter bacteria which we will help you pick so no worries there. And the time it takes to bring the sand to life. You are looking at a good few weeks before you can be sure that you are good to go. Remember, though, slow equals safe in the world of marine aquarium ownership.

If this is the option you want to go with. Take a look at our article on Using Bottled Bacteria to Turn Dry Sand into Live Sand.

We Can Use Live Sand

This method, almost, feels a little redundant but it may come in useful for certain situations. For example, I started my very first freshwater to marine aquarium conversion using this method as I bought a bag of Live Sand at a drastically cheaper price. It simply involves adding some Live Sand to your Dry Sand.

This can be done in a couple of different ways. You can grab a few scoops of sand from a friend’s already established, over six month old, marine aquarium and dump it into yours. Or you can add a bag of Live Sand to your Dry Sand, mixing it all up and allowing the bacteria in the Live Sand to reproduce and spread to the Dry Sand.

There are pros and cons to this method. If using sand from an already established aquarium, you run the risk of introducing pests or algae. If using a bag of Live Sand, you can, pretty much, consider it to be completely safe and pest free, as long as purchased from established companies like Carib Sea.

Either way, the bacteria will benefit from feeding in the same way as you do with bottled bacteria which is what makes this method a bit redundant and a bit expensive. We will go into this in an article for this method.

If this is the option you want to go with. Take a look at our article on Using Live Sand to Turn Dry Sand into Live Sand.

What is My Suggestion?

All three of these methods work fine but I would suggest you do this using bottled bacteria. Again, affordability is the name of the game on Simple Reefs. This is the most affordable option and, by far, the safest. It takes longer to do but will result in no pests at all and no unwanted algae. Your marine aquarium will remain pure but you will still accomplish the same result.

When it comes to marine aquariums, nothing good happens fast. Take your time because slow equals safe. The great thing about doing things slowly is that it means you are, almost always, saving money. You always have to spend some cash to get anywhere with this hobby. But, in plenty of scenarios, you can swap time for cash just like you can here. Thanks for reading.