Changing The Substrate?

[revhtree]

I have about 3-4 inches of a cc and sand bed. I was thinking about changing to the playsand bottom, while the fish are in qt. I have 105pds lr, some anemones, few coral frags, hermit crabs, ect...in the main tank now. I think the sand bottoms are a whole lot nicer.

Would this be advisable?

How would you do it?

What about the life that is in the substrate already?

What do you think?

How much sand would I need for 75g tank?

Thanks, revhtree.

 

[darb2]

It will be much easier to switch now than later. Check the article section for good directions.

 

[dralarms]

David,

since you are already set up I would change out 1/2 (oh never mind didn't see the lr amount).

You will be fine with that much lr to just change it all out at once, I was going to suggest 1/2 and 1/2 but you should be fine. At the most you might see a small spike but I don't think you will. There is a caculator on the top of the page that will tell you how much sand you need.

 

[AnnnetteM]

I just changed my sub w/ live sand and got rid of the CC. It is so much nicer! I don't know if anyone would disagree, but here's how I did mine and got no spikes after and infact my tank has been much more stable with NO2 and NO3 since the change. Well, I have a 110 gal and 100 lbs of LR. I just took out all snails, hermits, livestock, etc.... and as much live rock as I could on one side of the tank. I then took a wet vac (Here's wher some may say I'm crazy) and stuck the hose to the bottom and vacumed as fast as possible all the CC out w/o letting too much water get vacumed out. The trick to this was sticking to the bottom and shutting off the wet vac before I lifted it into the water. I sucked up maybe only 1/3 water BUT I saved my water from getting cludy from all the sh** on the bottom of the tank. I then poured the live sand into the tank by putting the bag to the bottom and emty it gently so it didn't fly all over. I got my sand $1.00 a pound so it wasn't bad. My water was clear in 2 hours and all went back in the tank. I didn't lose 1 creature! And didn't have but maybe a tiny tiny spike in NO2 and NO3 over the next week. It worked for me, but some like I said may think I'm nuts. Just my own 2cents. Good luck however you decide to do it! It was worth the days work!