How to make a SSB a DSB?

[d9hp]

Right now I have a SSB (1-2 inches) of live sand in my 10 gallon fuge. My local Walmart has southdown sand and I want to make the SB about 6 inches or so. How can I do this withought nastifiying the tank and covering up all the things that are so good for filtration?

Thanks a ton.

 

[BillyZ]

From I hear it basicaly comes down to adding the sand as slowly and gently as possible. Some things I've heard are:
Turn off pumps and powerheads while your're doing it
Use a piece of pvc pipe set down to the sand bed and pour the sand through that rather than directly into the water.

 

[maiceman]

Sorry to say that there really is no way to avoid a large cloud in your tank if you need to add sand. I would add a cup or 2 and let it settle out and then repeat. The PVC works pretty good at minimizing the floating particles but the only thing that really is effective is time. I added to the bottom of my over flow about 2 months ago and I had a cloud for a day and a half. Considering the bottom of the overflow is only 6" X 6" and I only have the sand 4" deep you can imagine the mess you will have if you add all your sand at once. A small, short term cloud will not have a big effect on you inhabitants but I lost a couple of damsels during my main tank sand fill in which I added pretty much all at once. That cloud lasted over a week.

 

[d9hp]

Ok, I am not sure if I want to do it now... Will my corals and fish really be effected?

 

[PrettyFishies]

If you do it very slowly....I don't think you'll have a problem...

 

[d9hp]

Ok, I would really like to have some more feedback folks. Will I need to stir up the existing SSB?

 

[Hara]

You could take the corals out for a couple of hours, put them in a bucket with some low flow. Add your sand and after a couple hours pass, most of the chaos will have settled.