Crushed coral to sand

[patm09]

Anybody had good experience with this? When I set my Solana up 2 months ago a buddy gave me free crushed coral for my tank so I wouldn't have to buy any. Being a newbie I didn't think about it and now that I am really into this hobby and done some research I really want to do a deep sand bed..about 4 inches of medium grade aragonite sand. Right now I have 2 Ocellaris, 1 Skunk Shrimp and a couple of hammer corals and xenia along with a small CUC.

Can anyone with experience give me steps to tank in order to do this?

Thanks!

[seapug]

gradually remove the crushed coral over a period of a week or so. You don't need to remove every speck. Rinse your new sand and gradually add it to the tank over a period of days. There are many ways to do it, but in a tank that size, it's probably easiest to put a few cups at a time in a plastic sandwich bag, sink it to the bottom then use a knife to cut it open.

[chefgreg]

gradually remove the crushed coral over a period of a week or so. You don't need to remove every speck. Rinse your new sand and gradually add it to the tank over a period of days. There are many ways to do it, but in a tank that size, it's probably easiest to put a few cups at a time in a plastic sandwich bag, sink it to the bottom then use a knife to cut it open.

+1
just remove it while doing your water change with your syphon "a lil at a time so you dont remove alot of your biofilter".

[409corey]

When adding the new sand into your tank after u have washed it out. Take a 3/4" or 1" PVC pipe that will reach the bottom and tape a funnel to the top of the pipe. Then slowly pour your sand down the pipe..... Worked great for me!

[WetShepherd]

I'll tell you what I did for what it's worth. I was in a similar boat - started with CC, but it was because I didn't know any better. Reading horror storries here on RC convinced me to switch, then the addition of a yellow coris wrasse made it an immediate need.

1. drain the water to buckets and save it
2. place the live rock, corals and clean up crew in the buckets with the water
3. place fish in QT tank (with water from tank - no acclimation required)
4. remove crushed coral - sift to save any life you can
5. add rocks
6. add sand, then water (I didn't use any tricks - just gently poured onto rocks)
7. add CUC
8. wait for sand to settle (took about 3 - 6 hours for me - kept fish in QT overnight)
9. add fish

I think that was it - the process itself took about an hour for my 55g. It was early in the tanks life (I had no coral then) so it didn't have a huge impact on my biofilter.

Best of luck - let us know how it goes ;)

[kingfisher62]

I too started with Crushed coral not knowing any better and had issues with nitrates . I contemplated for over a year about changing to sand but could never bing my self to do it. Then one day my tank sprung a leak so I had to replace the tank and figured now was the time to do it. I basically took all my water, live rock and livestock out and placed in buckets. Placed some well rinsed sand in the new tank and proceeded to put everything back in the tank. It was cloudy for a couple of day but every thing handled it well.