Switching from CC to Live Sand

[Meadowofdragons]

Hey guys, so I've had my 72g saltwater tank for about 2 years now and I'm getting pretty sick and tired of this crushed coral substrate on the bottom of my tank. It harbors way too much junk, looks bad really quickly. It also spikes my phosphates sometimes and I'm just sick of it. So I've decided to switch to Live Sand. I just bought a 20lb bag of AragAlive live sand and if I calculated correctly, for a 72g aquarium I would need 45lbs of live sand for a 1 inch bed, right?

But that's not my main question. My main question is how do you switch? I heard one person say they take their fish out and put them in a bucket, then put the live rock in a separate bucket, drain ALL the water out, and then shop vac the coral out of the tank. Then put the sand down and fill the whole tank back up.

Will this work? Won't taking all of the water out mess with my eco system? Will I have to cycle the tank all over again for like a month? Any thoughts and advice on how to switch from cc to live sand would be greatly appreciated! :)

[thegrun]

I would use a 3/4" hose and siphon out 1/4 of the tank's crushed coral (all of the CC in one area) and then replace it with the new sand. Wait a week and do the next section...and keep at it on a one week cycle until you have all the CC replaced with sand. Use a long neck funnel (the oil change type) to place the sand so there is less cloudiness. I would have strongly recommended using dry sand that you could wash with a garden hose in a 5 gallon bucket to remove the sand fines (dust). With live sand you really can't do that, but I would still dump the new live sand in a bucket full of saltwater and stir it up to try and get most of the fines out.

[thegrun]

If you siphon out the old CC and only replace 1/4 of the tank's sand at a time you will not have a cycle.

[Meadowofdragons]

Are you saying I should only do 1/4 at a time so I DONT lose the cycle? Or are you saying I should do it all at once to AVOID losing the cycle?

[thegrun]

I'm sorry, I could have been more clear. Only remove 1/4 of the tank's cc at a time, replace it with sand and then wait a week before your next removal/replacement. If you follow this routine you will not have a cycle.

[Meadowofdragons]

How to I keep the sand and crushed coral seperate? So when I go to get the cc out of the tank I don't take the sand with it?