Sand bed changeout

[Jonmf]

Well I've decided to change out my sand from white to black. Think it's a cool look. I wanted to run my plan by you guys and get some feedback and suggestions. I have a shallow sand bed now, about 1 - 2" and I don't want to empty the tank and do want to do this on the fly.

My plan is to, slowly over the next six weeks or so siphon out my existing sand while doing routine wc's. I won't be able to get all of it but most I think most. Then let it go bare bottom for a short time and maybe some that I couldn't siphon out would work its way out. Then slowly add the new sand.

Looking for input, ideas and any comments really.

Another question is regular or live sand? I have a lot of live rock already, established for about 6 years.

[moondoggy4]

Regular not live sand, are they're any fish in the tank?

[Jonmf]

Yeah, fish & full reef. Guess I should've put that in there.

[Jonmf]

Here's a full tank shot.

280686

[Jonmf]

ttt

[atrox]

Dude that's ambitious I'm sure it could be done by removing a little each day, but why even risk it. You're tank looks great, and so many things could go wrong here. IMO way to much to risk just for sand color change. With that being said you're sand bed isn't deep so you're plan sounds well thought out. I'm sure you have a lot of critters in the sand bed and that is another issue filtering them out unless you don't mind losing them. You've got a mature and established tank, they don't tank kindly to tinkering with let alone full blown substrate removal. I've seen tanks as nice as yours go downhill due to removing a significant amount of bio media. I would have a tub or something setup as a temporary holding station that is setup with your water and you're sand so you have a fail safe if the tank decided to be unforgiving.

[Donkeykong]

I think your plan sound pretty sound. Test your water through out this process to ensure you don't accidentally kick off a mini cycle and have a good amount of new saltwater mixed up just encase you need to do a emergency water change. I have changed out a sand bed in a similar way. Have you seen black sand tanks that have been up and running for a while? I have never seen one that has been established that still looks completely black, usually you have fish poop, diatoms, bits of rubble and everything else that usually blends in well with the light sand but sticks out very much with the black sand. Just kinda of a heads up, I know a guy local that did that then after a few months complained about the sand bed cause it never looked clean enough for him.

[Jonmf]

Those are some interesting thoughts. Thanks for the kind words and feedback. I'm not 100% decided just yet, guess I need to do s'more thinking on it.

[supra400hptt]

I've tried black sand twice. White particles will end up mixed in and impossible to get out.

But if you want to change it out, I've done it a few times. I use a 3/4" hose and get as much as possible by siphoning. Then I put power heads in the back bottom and blow the sand from under the rocks to the front of the tank and siphon. Repeat until it's all out. Blow off the rocks also when going through the process to get any sand off of them and onto the bottom so it can be sucked out.