How Do You Convert From Crushed Coral To Live Sand?

[Jasonanatal]

I have since decided to heed the warnings for possible dangers down the road with using Crushed Coral for my substrate. Can anyone please advise me on the steps that are needed to relayer my tanks substrate with Live Sand instead of Crushed Coral? You advice as always is very appreciated.

[Salttanker]

You will need to do it a little at a time as there are established bacterial colonies in the coral already. I would do it in 1/4's at a time. Take some out, then replace with sand. It will be a pain, but if you try to take all the CC out at one time, you will lose those colonies and the tank could take a turn for the worse. Many people have done this here successfully, so hopefully they will chime in as well for some additional advice.

Mike

[seaham358]

Glad to hear that your going sand. You have another issue with the UG filter to deal with. Can you take that out if you move the Cc over to one side of the tank? As stated above remove in sections allowing the new sand bed time to build up bacteria. if you had more LR this would not be as big of an issue. Seeing you have little lr you need to do this slowly and in steps. Are You getting LS or play sand? If you just dump the sand into the tank your going to have a hugh sand storm so you should try using a PVC pipe and pour the sand into the pipe moving it slowly along the bottom to get the sand spread.

[fishfreek]

This article describes the procedure you can use to swap out your substrate.

http://www.aquariumadvice.com/showqu...q=2&fldAuto=27

[cordodor]

noob here...

have had my crushed coral substrate for the last year and it's been working great, as far as I can tell. PH can be a bit high sometimes, but water conditioner seems to take care of that.

What are the advantages of sand? Can you mix sand/crushed coral? Thanks for the help.

[Fluff]

One of the advantages is more surface area for good bacteria to establish. Another is ease of maintenance. Crushed coral needs vacuumed, sand is almost maintenance free.

[fishfreek]

Mixing the two will result in the sand eventaully settling to the bottom and yo would have a CC bed with sand under it.

As long as the CC substrate is shallow you can easily clean it with a syphon on a regular basis.