from crushed coral to live sand...hmm

[juice28]

ok this is the deal, I startedout with crushed coral9because that what the LFS recomended) I later found out about the drawbacks to the crushed coral, now my tank has been up a few months and has a ew things in it mainly a cleaner crew and a couple starter fish, my tank bottom is roughly 1.5 inches of cc...now i want to use live sand so should i just remove all the cc or mix it or what? I dont want to.."damage" my tank. but I dont want to over do the substrate either by making it too thick. I basically have live crushed coral now.. any ideas?

 

[SparKy697]

There is surely more than one way to do this. It looks like you have plenty of live rock in that tank so I don't think I would worry about a bacteria kill off. If it were me, I think I would find a tub or barrel to hold the live rock and another to hold the livestock. Once the tank is empty, change the substrate. Refill.
The rock should have no problems keeping up with the fish load all by itself.

 

[ryshark]

The other option would be to slowly change out the CC to sand in small sections of the tank. I would not just add sand over the CC. The sand will just work its way through the CC and you wouldnt see it anymore. Unless ofcourse you added lots of sand. Also, don't waste your money on buying all "live sand" just by the dry sand and it will become live eventually. I like the CaribSea, I think I put pictures of if on my 180-gallon build thread

 

[Ziggy953]

47g tank, I would go with Sparky's method. Get it over and done with in one shot. Be prepared to see a diatom bloom from the sand. That isn't that big of a deal and will burn off in a few weeks after showing up.

 

[melosu58]

Whether you do it in stages or all at once you can siphon it out and use a PVC pipe to slide the new rinsed sand to the bottom. You`ll still get a small sand storm but not nearly as big a one as you would if you just dropped it.

 

[juice28]

thank yo ual lfor the tips, ill probably do it all in one, faster results and thanks for the tip on the regular sand instead of live that'll save a couple bucks for..something ill end of getting.. ill put it to my new tank fund lol and thatnks mel for the pvc tip i was actually wonderg how i was going to combat the big sand storm, I think my fish and cleaners will like the sand alot more also

 

[ryshark]

All at once is good... when I switched from 75gallon to 180gallon, I put the fish in the same tub with the live rock. I figured that it would help to filter out (through bio filtration) all the ammonia they would create ie..poop... while I was working on the switch. I also added a small powerhead to the tub for oxygen. Thats the way I would recommend it, worked perfect for me. Just be careful when putting the rocks in and taking them out in regards to where your fish are. You don't want to accidently crush one as it is hiding within the rocks.

 

[roka64]

I went the 1/3 at a time in my 55. But I had a mixture of CC and sand....wanna talk about a pain.

 

[juice28]

i have a large cooler that i got from the LFS for when I purchase LR so i think ill use that, it is well insulated so it keeps the water fairly warm for a long time and i picked up a small wisper filter. I will most likley get it done this weekend, im figuring about 20-30 lbs should be enough, even though my tank is 47 gal its only like 2feet by 2 feet so there isnt alot of surface are to cover ill probably end up putting the fish with at least some rocks so they dont get too stressed out

 

[hemmer]

Yea do it all at once. Thats what i did with my 45 gallon. I bought a 55 gallon trash can from home depot and it worked great because i could transfer most of my rock into it too. This feat of switching substrate is definitely worth it. Im very happy with the sand compared to my crushed coral.

 

[juice28]

thanks, ill have to try a trashcan, i tried to fit my pump on my the cooler but it was a no go, ill probably end up breaking out my old whisper