can someone walk me through changing substrate?

[LekicINC]

I want to get rid of my current substrate and add a DSB. Can someone walk me through this? I need help on everthing from where to put the fish and liverock at the time of the change to what sand to use.

Please, please help. My nitrates are pretty high, and I am in the process of setting up the tank to lower them.

[BLKTANG]

This is what i did.

I got big buckets,& took water from the tank,& put it in the bucket,then in 1 bucket i put just LR.In another bucket i put a heater,fish,inverts.3rd bucket i put corals, Power head,& heater.Then i removed the substrate,added NSW,and let the water settle a bit.It was a PITA.

[Brandon's Reef]

yup just take every thing out put in the new substrate the put it all back in, may not be the best but it is what I did.

[Pandora]

It's redundant, but I'll just go over in a little more detail. Best idea if you have large pc's of LR is to get a 10-20gal tupperware or similar container ;store that away from your livestock, unless they are attached like corals/anemones. Can help if you are able to use plastic ties to label where corals have been if they are attached to rock, because once you start stirring things up, you will forget and likely crush corals that closed up and couldn't be seen, and forget which end on the rock is up from down. While you are taking out large pc's of LR, take as much care as possible not to disturb your substrate, because this will stir up muck and make the water very cloudy/polluted, making it harder to catch the other inhabitants.

Once the rock is mostly gone, it'll be much easier to catch your fish. I also kept my fish/inverts separate from the rock, to prevent them accidentally getting crushed in all the movement and their panic to hide. I kept them in 10 gal buckets, such as that which salt comes in, or the kind you can buy at HD, or you can invest in more giant tupperware. To minimize stress, siphon out the water first, and put in a heater and powerhead to keep the water moving. Once the temp is stable, you can catch your fish & inverts. I'd use the lid closed loosely to minimize stress.

On the type of sand, the time-honored preference is Southdown play sand, which used to be sold at Home Depots nationwide, but now is getting harder and harder to find. Here is the whole scoop on everything you ever wanted to know about this brand, if you want to look for it:
http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=128028

What is basically ideal for reef DSBs is round 1-3mm grains of pure calcium carbonate sand, or aragonite. This will give you all the benefits of a good sand bed--buffering water, and the proper texture & grade that dentrivores and sandsifters can graze & live in. Other types of sand can be used with mixed results, but many contain more quartz, which has sharper edges, or may be too fine grained, or if you are unfortunate, even leach unwanted minerals in water. Pure aragonite can also be purchased from larger pet stores, but usually at a price significantly higher than Southdown. Another good source is if you get lucky and come across someone breaking down a tank and has a lot of live sand to sell; this is ideal, because it has all the beneficial bugs already in there. If you are not lucky enough to locate it, you can also get a large amount of substrate (bagged, not live) and seed it with a smaller amount from an established system.

Either way, you would of course do all this locating before you start emptying your tank, and hopefully you have your substrate already. When you start laying down the new sand, put at least some of your old substrate on top, or at least what you are using for seed sand. After you add water, expect it to be cloudy for at least a day or two, more likely closer to a week if you are using old sand. It will settle in time when bacteria coat the microscopic suspended particles. In the meantime, your fish & LR are still in the large containers with circulation & heat, and can wait a day or two; I would wait until most of the suspension settles before adding them.

[LekicINC]

thanks, that is exactly what I will do then. I am worried about keeping my fish in a bucket for 2 days though? You think it will be ok?