Sifting/Replacing sandbed?

[JohnnyK81]

Hey guys,

So my sandbed over the year or two has turned into an ugly mess.. Odd sized chunks, broken shells, multi colored, etc.. I'd like to replace it with some nice white fine sand.. What is the best way to do this without causing a big problem (I mean, I know i should go in sections, but physically, removing the sand I mean).

Any suggestions? I suppose I could just try sifting it with a sieve or something down there to keep the fine sand, but I wouldn't mind a complete replace either. I think I must have bought some large sand, and some fine sand, but I can't seem to recall. And the syphon only sucks up the fine sand, which I'd like to keep!

Thanks

[NastyZ]

I would just syphone it all out and put whatever grade sand in I doubt ur going to be able to pick at the sand and keep the one u want in

[Drew707]

Try a diamond goby first..I had same problem a while ago and he took all the fine sand and put it on top and moved all the shells in one spot or around the rocks where I couldn't see them lol awesome lil guy and hard worker..if u have dirty sandbed get ready because he will clean it up and u will soon need to clean ur filters ;)

[CliftonArbogast]

i have taken the sand out and sifted it with a seive ( from the kitchen after checking to see noone was looking:celeb1: )

I thought little shells would make it look nice ( noob mistake:headwalls:)

Had three buckets, one for the stuff from the tank, then one for the fine and one for the course. Dont wash with fresh water, dont take more than 5 hours and you can do it all in one day. ( i did about 100 lbs at one time) Oh, keep the sand wet and also around the same temp as the tank so you dont kill the bacteria. Hope it helps

Oh on removal, just get a larger diameter hose, might have to take a break to pump water back into tank. After I sifted to get sand back in tank, just used a glass and filled it with sand then poured out the sand at the bottom of the tank to keep it from blowing everywhere.

[JohnnyK81]

GOtcha, thanks man. So you're large diameter hose picked up the shells and larger chunks? I have (had?) a diamond sifting goby. He kept it clean, but the big chunks remain.

[sqwat]

Very risky to do I would get the goby and queen conch to clean it u have all that good stuff you built up over the years u are going to destroy that and start a new cycle.in the ocean and around reefs there are no clean perfect sandbeds.just clean it up a bitand add new on top slowly I only foresee disaster if done wrong.proceed with caution.

[don_chuwish]

Doesn't sound easy to be sure. There's a lot of bio goodness in your current sand. How deep is it? You may need to worry about disturbing the anaerobic lower layers.
Perhaps just skimming off a section of surface layer at a time & replacing it with the stuff you like. Give it a couple of weeks before doing another (not really sure how long you should wait). Then at least the top layer would look like what you want.

- D

[ldallen95219]

I agree with sqwat - buy some new sand that you like and add to top. The sand you already have in there has good beneficial bacteria in it and if you stir it up too much you are going probably have another cycle to go through. I had gravel in my tank which I didn't like - took out about a pound of it and then just added some nice fine sand on top. My readings stay the same, no algae outbreak and no cycling to deal with.

[ReefNOOBIE21]

you would def start a new cycle, get a goby or jawfish and maybe vaccum when you do a wc