tank upgrade will my tank recylce?

[areskasparian]

he guys i have a 150g reef, lps, polyps and mushrooms. when i first started my tank i knew nothing about the reef hobby i had kept freshwater but didn't know how much more different and difficult it is to keep a reef. so when i started i had bough 100 pounds of petco sand(real **** stuff). and bought live rock from here and there. now question is here i want to change my sand im thinking of CaribSea Ocean Direct Caribbean Live Sand or CaribSea Aragamax Sand i want to have a deep sand bed from what i have look i would need about 200 pounds of sand to achive a deep sand bed, correct me if im wrong. also i want to add about 60 more pounds of rock. i currently have about 80-90 pounds of rock in there. i want to aquascape my tank with some shelf rock, im going to get those dry from bulk reef supply. now how would i go about adding this(if possible) i know i would have to cycle the rock separately but will the tank start cycling again if i do this?

[Dmorty217]

when you take all the sand out it will cause problems in the tank and the cycle will more than likely start over again. Just take the corals out and put them in a separate smaller tank with a light and filter and go at it

[areskasparian]

Well my plan was to empty the water nd put it in containers nd take out the corals nd the fish sepertately and I know how stuff get stuck in the sand nd disturbing it is deadly that's y I won't be touching the sand till maybe I have 10-20 gallons of water left in the tank and just and dump the whole sand out with the dirty water and add the add the new sand will that new sand start the cycle over?

[Dmorty217]

Yes, water doesn't cycle a tank. Rock, sand and surfaces on the tank is where the good bacteria that cycles the water lives. Old sand will also release a lot of nitrates and sometimes in old deep sand beds sulfur dioxide(I think) smells like sulfur anyway that won't be good for anything living in the tank