how to change crushed coral to sand

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stevefromga2000

Aquarium Advice Freak
Joined
Jun 14, 2006
Messages
253
Location
Misawa Japan
i will be getting about 40lbs of sand here very soon, but i'm not sure exactly how to switch over from CC to live sand. i don't want to just remove all the CC and then just refill the tank with the sand. i have all kinds of little worms and who knows what else thriving in the bottom of my tank within the CC. i would like for as much of them to live as possible. i've seen people post to only do a little bit at a time, but how much at once? how long should i allow for the creatures to move over to the sand before i add more?
 
I did mine 1/3 at a time. I did it before my PWC, over about two months. Some say you can do 50%, I just wanted to make sure the good little critters moved to the sand. I also had LS mixed in with my CC, so I had to sift that out as well.

HTH!
 
should i sift it out with some sort of strainer or something? maybe go get a cheap strainer that is used for cooking or something?
 
should i sift it out with some sort of strainer or something?

I wouldn't worry about it, if you don't have LS in the tank. That is the only reason I sifted and did it 1/3 at a time. If you do have sand in your tank, I would go buy a cheap plastic strainer. I would look for something that has small enough holes/slots to hold in the CC but let the water out relatively quickly. I did leave a little bit of the CC in the tank, to possibly help my pH. That actually went up after I replaced the canopy.
 
okay, i think i got it now. i will just remove a small portion of the CC, replace it with some sand. then, about a week later, i will continue to do the same at week intervals. is it a good idea to leave a little bit of the CC in with the sand?
 
I left some CC in mine. I think I have about 5-10LBS in there still. I'm not sure if 1 week is enough time for the tank to keep up, unless you do maybe 1/4 at a time.....but I could be wrong....
 
alright, well i just got some bad news. now, aquariumguys.com cannot ship my sand to me. they gave me a price for everything, i paid my bill, and actually expected it to be here within the next 2 or 3 days. today i got an e-mail saying that they would have to charge me over 100 dollars just to ship my sand to me priority. being here in japan, i can only have things shipped to me priority, so now i won't be getting any sand. that sucks, now i have to keep looking around here. thanks for the help anyways everybody. wish me luck finding sand for sale here somewhere.
 
If you can find aragonite playsand, you can use that. Make sure it is NOT silica based. A great test for aragonite sand is to bring vinegar with you, put a little of the test sand in a cup, dump some vinegar on it and if it fizzles/foams, you are good to go. As for the fizzle/foam, trust me, you will know when it does.
 
Cool, I ran all over town, with my vinegar and tested all kinds of sand....people must have thought I was crazy! LOL!!
 
You can use the silica based play sand with no problems. It just won't buffer your system like the aragonite will. Also, it may be a little rough for some inverts like burrowing snails and soft bellied fish, but in a pinch it will work just fine. Just make sure you get the play sand, not construction sand. Play sand has to be washed and sterilized before it can be marked play sand.
 
awesome, i am going to go to the store here on base right now and look for some. hopefully they have it. it's summer time, so there is a lot of stuff like that out for sale. thanks guys.
 
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