Neptune Aquatics

Club sand bank?

I hope everyone is well and staying safe+healthy!
I was wondering if it would be possible to start up a club bank for live sand and/or rock.
It would look something like this: A rubbermaid stock tank, couple heaters, couple powerbeads. If we wanted to get really fancy, an ATO, an auto feeder and/or a dosing pump of ammonia. Throw in dry rock and sand and let it cure. Bacteria wise, I figure it could go one of two ways. We could go the clean and reliable route of Dr. Tims, Microbacter7, and some coralline algae starter (My preference). Or, we could go old school and have many club members bring in cups of live sand from their tanks to get a lot of biodiversity (and pests).

Someone would need to host the container in their garage or something. We'd need a system to distribute the startup costs (I think under $1000) and figure out a way to account for who makes use of it and how much.
Option A: Open a dedicated account. Club members loan money to the account until we have reached the startup cost. Start up the system and basically run it as a business- We could get a deal on sand and dry rock buying in bulk, and then we a set a reasonable price by weight for sand and rock. That money goes back to the account to refund members' startup loans. After paying off startup costs, all profits could go to the general club coffers.
Option B: Like option A, but rather than pay a specified price for sand and rock, you get what you put in dry. So if you want 40lbs of live sand, you take it and put back in 40lbs of new dry sand.

Benefits:
1) Save money. Buying and shipping in bulk, we could probably get a discount on dry sand and rock. further savings when you consider individual reefers don't have to pay extra for live sand and bacteria products.
2) Source of clean, mature rock. Even if you wanted to, there aren't many places anymore where you can get this. Add in the fact that this will be local so the rock won't be sitting dry on a truck or plane while its shipped from far away. Picture two years from now: the ability to get mature and clean live rock for any tank you want to start at a reasonable cost is a great membership benefit.
3) Quicker cycling of new tanks.
4) Makes quarantining a whole lot easier!!!
5) Safety for tank disasters. If something happens and your livestock is in danger, you can quickly access the bank (outside of business hours) and use the media to set up an emergency holding system.
6) revenue stream for BAR
7) fosters unity?
 
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Reasonable idea, BUT!
Cons, who’s has the space for this and wants to let people come by outside of business hours?
What would be in it for them?
I do have roughly a ton of dead rock that I could be talked out of...
 
Interesting idea.
Especially since some members do not have the space for soaking rock and sand.
But as above, it is quite a bit of work and space.

Also:
Many people like different types of sand. Sugar fine, coarse, mixed, etc.
Many people like to carefully aquascape, which means using dry rock.
 
Throw in dry rock and sand and let it cure. Bacteria wise, I figure it could go one of two ways. We could go the clean and reliable route of Dr. Tims, Microbacter7, and some coralline algae starter (My preference).
If you're going to be adding bottled bacteria why couldn't you do that on your own? It's not like it takes that long of a time to get a tank up and cycled. BTW no LFS will want any part of this considering they are selling live cured rock for lots of a dollars a pound (I'm not sure what it honestly costs anymore). And if you add the coralline algae addition, need to add lights to the tank, and if you add lights, you will have algae that you don't want.

Or, we could go old school and have many club members bring in cups of live sand from their tanks to get a lot of biodiversity (and pests).

Yeah the "and pests" bit is why I would never do this aspect of it. As it stands me rescuing corals from a tank to distribute ended up adding "and pests" to my tank, while I was able to (I hope) get all the aptasia and majano anemones off, one thing I wasn't able to get was all the vermetid snails, and they exploded out in my tank which I'm none too happy about.

But who does this all benefit? I'd think mostly new reefers only, not current members who already have a tank and are up and going. I mean not everyone is like some of these members who throw a new tank up every other month :D

That said, at one point I, as well as other members (Mario) had rock in a big barrel for years, with water circulation and who wants it... FOR FREE... crickets.
 
Not something I would use no matter who did it. Hard thing with the club is a lot of us are spread out. Since I drive for a living I would not want to jump in my car and drive a distance. Guess I’m getting old
 
First off, I love that people are thinking creatively and trying to find ways to build the value of the club for it’s members. That is fantastic! Please please do not take the rest of what I’m going to say as a discouragement of more ideas.

Drilling into the details, this particular plan isn’t something I would use or support. Starting a new tank with bacteria-in-a-bottle and ghost feeding or even better 1-2 initial fish is so straightforward, quick, and safe. The days of some variable months-long cycle or risking your fish with high levels of toxic ammonia and nitrite are (or should be) gone. I wouldn’t really trust a central repository of rock/sand to be pest free and well maintained, nor would I want to be the person in charge of it. Even for those who do want to seed their tank with someone else’s tank bacteria, you are better off asking a single local member you trust for a handful of sand or a small rock to put in your tank. And for people really intent on getting pre-seeded rock, some of the LFS’s already sell it, likely closer to you than where the sand back would be.

I personally think this is a solution for a problem that has already been solved. Plus given our geographic area there isn’t a convenient place to house such a project, and quite unlikely that anyone would volunteer to host it long-term.
 
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