should i be stirring up my cc?

[kimbertent]

hello. i am fairly new to the hobby. i have a 72 gallon bowfront tank with crushed coral on the bottom (i know bad mistake but i didnt know this until after it was entirely set up) i was wondering should i be stirring up the bottom? or would this just bring all of the bad stuff up and out of it and kill my fish. there is a lot of algea on the bottom that is yellow greenish brownish and some purple. thank you.

[cantfindnemo]

I don't think you need to stir it up but what I do since I use CC also is when you sifon during a water change make sure you press down into the CC to get all the gunk out of there that will help keep your tank very clean.

[chip721]

I wouldn't make it a habit of stirring too often or too deeply. You could unknowingly release some toxins that might prove harmful to your creatures. I used it when I set up my 54g. At 11 months, I swapped out the CC with sand. I'd siphon out about 1/3 of my CC, replace with it rinsed sand, and complete things with a partial water change. Waited a week, got another 1/3 and so on. Of course my skimmer was going the entire time and I also used GAC just to be on the safe side. Everything went well. The glare of the second photo doesn't do things justice, but I backed out enough to see the sand change.

At 18 months I'm getting ready to substantially reduce my corals in the 54. It's getting too crowded. I'll transfer almost all SPS to my (in-progress) 90g. I've found some Yard Right Play Sand locally at $3.49 per 40 pound bag.

With Crushed Coral substrate
http://i27.photobucket.com/albums/c154/chip721/54gfullshot.jpg

With Sand
http://i27.photobucket.com/albums/c154/chip721/CCtosand.jpg