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View Full Version : Change of substrate, need help refining my procedure.


Lord Magnus
03/04/2010, 11:29 AM
I've posted this on different place, but I'm looking for lots of suggestions, in case I'm missing something due to my inexperience on the matter. This will be long. I really appreciate you sticking around to give me a hand.

I really need some help. I'm getting my reef sand tomorrow to replace my undergravel filter and gravel.
So I have this procedure partially figured out in my mind, but it's complicated and I'm very limited in water storage.

The tank is 55 gallons.
I currently have: 2 small to medium tomato clowns, 1 small hippo tang, 1 bicolor dottyback (from hell), 1 coral banded shrimp, 1 plume coral, mushrooms, xenia, GSP or starbust pollyps, a frogspawn, a smal zoa frag. My clean up crew consist of approx, 25 blue legg hermits, 10 red leg hermits 2 chitons, 25 nerites snails, 75 dwarf ceriths, 20 florida ceriths, 4 small mithrax crab. I also have about 80 pounds of highly porous LR called Sun rock.

So the stuff I have available to carry or store water are: 5gallon buckets x2, a 30 gallon long tank (that is going to be my sump/fuge), a 20 tall (where I was thinking on transferring the fish while I'm in this process) and a 10 gallon tank that I was thinking of using to store some of my water as well.

As you can already tell, the first problem is the snails. They're all mixed up with the gravel, specially the dwarf ceriths, which are very small, so how do I get them from the gravel?

Second, I have all the live rock, so I was thinking of somehow packing it in the 30 long, and filling it with wather from my DT. The 10 gallon, or the 20 gallon would have the fish and some rock, and whatever rock I can store somewhere else I'll do it. I'm even planning to use a cooler.

My wather has been highly dosed with kick-ick (an ick medicine) and my nitrates are actually a little high now. So I wanted to do a good water change without freaking all my fish out. My LFS suggested 70% WC and most important, they will let me borrow some of their buckets to manage or transport water.

THE BREAK DOWN:

1st - removal of all Live rock and live stock (please help me with ideas on how to get all my dwarf ceriths on this one).

2nd - drain all water possible in the mentioned containers, even a trash cans if necessary.

3rd - scoop my gravel out, and if there's a way to save my brittle starfish and other borrower creatures from being disposed with the gravel, let me know as well, even though I doubt it.

4th - I'm epoxying my rocks and laying them in the clean bottom of my tank and try to design some decent aquascape (also completely new at that).

5th -Lay down 40 pounds of sand and spread it around. Then mix the remaining 30 pounds I have with the 20 pounds of live caribsea sand to seed bacteria on the top substrate.

6th - slowly pump 30% of my stored water back into the DT running it through a 200 micron filter to catch crap.

7th - complete the salt water to my desired level. This time I'm using Crystal Ocean salt mix.

8th - Drop by drop acclamation of the live stock for 30 minutes, and careful re-introduction to the display tank.

After all that is done, I'll start building my sump/refugium with the 30 long tank. I already have everything, including Overflow box, and return pumps. Still need to get the plumbing, but it should not be a problem.

I'm thinking this will take me a whole day, and I'll need to start super early.

Is there any advice, or anything you would do different?

How long could I possibly keep my fish and snails in the 20 tall tank while I'm in this process?

Please, don't hesitate in suggesting anything. I really feel I could be leaving too many loose ends and I would hate to stress my fish much more than needed.

Now... this is the start of a better life for my reef tank!
I'm excited and worried at the same time.

- Magnus.

Borrisrex
03/04/2010, 11:39 AM
You may want to get some heaters and powerheads in your containers. You will probably have a sand storm no matter how carefull you are and it may take some time to settle.

I have never done anything like this but good luck and dont rush to fast.

Kates
03/04/2010, 01:31 PM
sounds like a big job, but it will be worth it in the end I bet! My best thought is to look on craigslist or at home depot to find something that will work for temporarily storing most of your water and livestock. Something like plastic drinking-water storage containers that are not contaminated, would probably be easier for keeping water than the glass tanks, even in 5-20 gallon sizes. These would Less evaporation, easier to move, etc. than using the glass. These would be just for the water storage, opening usually too small for any Live stock.

This leaves you free to use the 5 gallon buckets for transferring stuff. I guess I would hesitate to use the LFS's water containers, even tho its a nice offer, you never know what yucky stuff has been put in them.

For temporary housing of LR and LS, a large clean plastic tub would be easiest IMO, that way you could put everything in there, with a powerhead and heater. Advantages: it leaves you free to get the 30g set up for sump right away, avoiding further "down time" with the livestock. Plus easier to set-up plumbing without the rocks and fish in the tank.

Good luck:)

Lord Magnus
03/04/2010, 01:53 PM
Thank you for the replies. My power heads are ready and I have 2 heaters I'm planning to use for these creatures.

Unfortunately I have no other choice than to go with the stuff from the LFS, since I'm under a HIGHLY restricted budget and I've already spend too much on this tank for being laid off. It's a pitty. Sump is the last thing I'm putting together and all I'm missing are some pvc gate valves that should be coming soon.

Thanks for the advices and the good luck wishes!

- LM.

Lord Magnus
03/06/2010, 08:19 PM
Ok, I've replaced all the gravel with the sand already. The fish are still in the qt tank, just hanging out there until my tank clears up better. I wanted to take pictures and post what I did, but I didn't have time in the process. It was just too much to get done, considering it took me 3 trips to my LFS to get new SW, etc.
Here's what I did:

1- Took all live rock out, put in the 30 long and fill with DT water.

2- Got all fish out into the QT tank with some LR and hiding spots.

3- Dug out as many snails as possible. This took me over 1 hr.

4- Drained the rest of the water and scooped crushed coral into a 5 gal bucket.

5- dumped the crushed coral in the bath tub (cleaned earlier with water and vinegar).

6- Took UGF out, scooped out all the gravel from the DT and disposed of it.

7- Cleaned DT inside and out with vinegar water and filled the base with 40 pounds of caribsea argonite dead reef sand, and mixed the other 40 pounds with 20 pounds of Caribsea premium argonite live sand and topped it off.

8- Filled 30% of DT with water (same water from DT that I drained and filtered 2 times)

9- Completed with freshly mixed SW. At this point also threw in heaters and turned bubbles to the max for aireation.

10- Still working on this, is designing some aquascape I can live with, that doesn't touch the glass anywhere so I can clean it easily. This is a complicated one.

11- Re-introduction of Fish and snails to the tank (they're still in the QT tank at this point while I take care of the aquascape. Any tips on this are very welcomed.

By the way, all LR, and Livestock always had a heater and power heads moving water at all times.

I hope I can finish this today, but sticking the rock together is going to be hard, specially underwater. Any tips about this is also very, VERY welcomed.

Thanks for sticking around!

- Lord Magnus.