Suspended Sediment

[Crepe]

I changed out my Coral sand for PFS, however, upon changing the substrate I distrubed a huge deposit of particulate coming from my coral sand and now it has inundated the water. Would it hurt if I did a 100% water change? There is no livestock in the tank at the moment, however i'm getting plants in this weekend, is it okay to add them? The filter is fully developed, been running it for about a year. I left a handful of coralsand in the tank itself to seed the PFS.

 

[mellawson]

I don't think it would hurt anything.

 

[neilanh]

no harm in a 100% water change since you have no inhabitants.

Also, because you have no inhabitants, it's likely your tank is not cycled. Running for a year doesn't mean anything if there's nothing to feed the bacteria.

 

[Crepe]

I just took out all the stuff for a rebuild...The old fish are in a new home. I know it's cycled I test every other day.... -___-

 

[neilanh]

If there's no source ammonia (fish waste, dosing ammonia, etc) then the bacteria will die. You won't see anything on your test results because since there's no source food, there's nothing for the bacteria to convert that could potentially show up when testing for ammonia, nitrIte and nitrAte.

If they go without food (waste or ammonia) for more than a few days, the colony will die, leaving you with an uncycled tank. When you go to add fish again or some source of ammonia, the cycle will start all over with a fresh batch of bacteria.

 

[Crepe]

Do you not understand? I just recently moved the fish as in 24 hours ago to another tank so they wouldn't be distrubed by my movement. There will be plants put in in a day which will provide plenty of water buffering