New tank, advice needed.

Hello all,
I have a recently set up tank going. But I have a couple questions before I go any further. First the sand I am using is sand from a tank that had been running previously. The bad thing is that the sand was left in a 5gallon bucket with some water for about a week and a half. I noticed some smell maybe like sour milk but nothing too strong. It seemed to be the water and not the sand. Also my live rock was from the same tank and was in a holding bucket with powerhead and a heater. The rock didn't have a foul order or anything. I am letting it all cycle and planning my next move of adding more live rock and taking some of this out. But my question is should I start over and scrap the sand and such or will I be fine? I really like the look of the sand as it has some seashells and stuff in it to. I just want to do everything right the first time instead of getting months down the road and having problems that could have been avoided before.
Thank you,
Tony

 

Thanks for the quick reply, My tank is actually a Biocube and I have intentions on turning the second chamber into a fuge with a led and cheato. The only problem is that there isnt a pet store in town that sells the cheato. But I just wanted to make sure that the sand couldnt go bad and same with the live rock.

 

Also, I guess I should say that the sand in the bucket wasnt completely covered with water it seemed that some had evaporated. I dont know if this changes anything.

 

Thanks for the helpful answers and now an update on my tank. I have been running this 14g biocube now for about a week and a half. And I think I am getting a diatom bloom, about half of my sandbed and almost all of my rock work is covered in brown alage. Also I am getting some purple algae on my rocks in blotches, which I am assuming is coraline algae. But the purple algae looks soft and fuzzy and much different from the hard encrusted coraline that was on the rocks when I bought them. Also, I am starting to notice a little bit of hair algae in the corner of my tank starting on the sand and moving to the bottom quarter of the glass. I have read that phosphates play a big role in encouraging the growth of hair alage. I think it may be my water source as I have been using RO water from walmart. I cannot afford to buy an ro/di unit right now as there is other stuff I still need to buy for my tank. I am also turning the second chamber into a fuge and I was wondering if cheato will help starve the hair algae of nutrients? Just looking on advice to go on from here and any help on clearing my tank back up. I know it is part of the process just wondering if there are any tricks of the trade? Thanks.

 

Also I think I should add that I run my light from when I goto work (9 or 10am) until about 8pm everynight. Is this too long of a light cycle and helping promote algae growth? And also when and should I run the actinics? Or do I only need to turn them on when I have corals? The actinics confuse me as to when I should run them. Or if I should run them alone or with the main light. Thanks again.