Changing Sand

[Syncere]

I am planning on changing out my CC substrate for something a bit more fine. What steps do I need to take in order to make the switch?

[RokleM]

If the tank has been run for any extended period of time, it needs to be done gradually. Can you give us more details? Tank size, amount of sand, how long it's been running, etc? In short, you siphon out small amounts every week, then start adding new.

[JeF4y]

First off, figure out what substrate you want to go to.

I went from CC to a sand that was so fine it drove us nuts. Ultimately swapped that out for fiji-pink sea-flor sand which was a happy medium.

Buy the sand and rinse it very very very well. Then go back and rinse it some more.

Pull your corals and bag/bucket them, pull your liverock and bucket it, pull your fish and bag/bucket them, capture as much water as you can, remove & discard the old substrate, add new, scape, fill, add your livestock.

That's an overly simple version of what will become a VERY long weekend for you.

[outy]

with your size of tank i think id tear it down remove all and add sand.

hope the tank is well established or you might go through a mini cycle.

take as much water out as you can before removing substrate the mixed water will be toxic once the nasty's in the gravel are released

RokleM's way is the safest so you dont go through a cycle or poison your tank

last option is to clean the detritus in substrate and add sand on top and mix it lightly

[Allmost]

take out all rocks, and as much water as u can

take the tank iwht the UNDISTURBED sand bed, and wash it out well.

get new substrate and wash well

put new sand in, fill up and do ure rock work

try to keep rocks wet through the whole process.

I did this many times, a little spikes in N and P but nothing tooo serious

[Toddrtrex]

About 3 years ago I did something similar, though I switched out the live rock too.

Maybe this will help,

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=1233581

[JeF4y]

take the tank iwht the UNDISTURBED sand bed, and wash it out well.


If everything (water, corals, fish) is out of the tank, what's the point in trying to keep the sandbed UNDISTURBED? Additionally, I would strongly advise against moving a tank with substrate in it. Or am I reading you wrong here?. Just my opinion...

[Syncere]

Thanks for all the responses!

I was somewhat in the ballpark of the process to do this after reading the responses. I have a 20 gallon tank and about 20 lbs of CC in the display and another 10 lbs in the sump which I am redoing which is why I though about changing all the sand at once. The tank has been running for about 2 months and a half.

What I had planned on doing was draining as much water from the tank into a rubbermaid tub and then adding all the livestock with a powerhead.

Then take out the old substrate.

Add the new sand. Not sure what I want to go to as I have a pretty low flow tank for the coral I keep. Pretty sure I don't want anything too fine. Just don't really like the big chunk look of the CC.

Then I was going to add a few gallons of freshly mixed saltwater and let that mix with the new substrate and test the next day to make sure there are no extreme readings.

[Syncere]

Any suggestions for a new substrate? I have 2 Koralia Nano's (425 gph) and a 325gph return in case that matters for the finer coarse sand. All flow is directed toward the surface. I will most likely buy locally to avoid shipping costs. So what types should I consider? How many mm should I be looking for just to be safe?