Can we keep it?

[Michelle50]

For a variety of reasons we are breaking down our tank. We will be moving with in the next year or two to a new home where we hope to set up our tank again. My question is..Can I keep my live rock and sand, so that we can put it back into our tank at a later date. Could we keep the live sand in the large gallon zip lock bags for that long? Just curious on if we could and how we should store it because we would like to keep these things if we could.

Thanks alot,
Michelle

 

[danmhippo]

Yes you can, but truthfully, I never kept them like that for so long. 2 large new trashcan is all you need. One for the sand, and one for the rocks. Into each trashcan, a heater and a powerhead or 2 to keep water circulating. If all you want to keep alive is the bacteria, then you do not need to make extra feeding. If you intend to keep pods and such alive, then you would probably need to feed them bits of food and make water changes when necessary.

Unless you have algae that you want to salvage, otherwise, you don't need any lights.

 

[Anonymous]

live rock you can try to save as mentioned above. But to be quite frank I would even bother wasting your time trying to save the sand. Just for the simple reason when you start to transfer the sand you're going to stir up all the unwanted nasties in the bottom of the sand bed.
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[fishfanatic2]

I'd definitely try and save the live rock since it is so expensive. Put in qa clean trash can with some circulation and light if you want to salvage any algae. As for the sand, I don't know if it could go that long in a plastic bag before 'dying'.

 

[Anonymous]

In my own opinion, when you're not talking months but possibly years, I think you should treat it all as a perishable product.

 

[Micky]

Sell it off and buy later.....

 

[Adam1]

Michelle,

Mickey has suggested the only resonable solution. It is the first thing that came to mind when I read your question.

All of the things that are important to keeping a reeftank are important to the life on your rock..... Good water movement, stable water chemistry, light, stable temp, food, etc.

If you are going to do all that work to save the rock, you might as well do it in a tank with some fish and corals!

As far as the sand goes.... I learned the hardway not to try and keep a sand bed even for a short move. Too much life dies off, and you end up with a horrible mess.

It is worth it to try and salvage some of the critters to re-seed a new bed or pass on to others, and if this were to be a quick move, I would suggest keeping a few cups of the top layer to seed a new bed. Give away the critters and/or scoops of sand to other reefers and discard the bulk of the bed.

HTH

Adam