Adding Live Sand to our established tank

[Ourfish]

So we have a red sea max 130D (34 gallon) tank with lots of coral, invertebrates and a fish. Our sand bed has been getting smaller and smaller after water changes and we want to add new live sand.

Is there a certain way of adding it? Will the corals become upset if they get covered in sand? Should we take all of our creatures out first and then add the sand?

Thanks,
Ourfish

 

[TellyFish]

Just curious, why are you losing sand with the water changes? From siphoning?

The corals will generally be upset if they are covered in sand. They would even prefer that the sand particles are not floating in the water in large quantities, so it is best to rinse the sand well before adding to remove the dust.

This is the process that I follow:

1. Put sand in a large container.
2. Run water over this container for 10-20 minutes, or until the water turns clear.
3. Scoop a small amount of sand into a cup, and then slowly submerge the cup of sand into the aquarium.
4. Lower the cup down to the base of the aquarium and slowly tip to empty the sand.

There should be no need to stress everyone out by removing them. Even with these precautions, you will probably still get some cloudiness in the tank after adding the new sand. This is fine, it will clear up in a few hours and will not hurt anything.

 

[Ourfish]

Great, thanks for that advice. Just out of curiosity, do we still have to rinse our sand out if our live sand is already wet?

oh and to answer your question, we tend to suck up a bit of sand in each water change when we're vacuuming the sand. Any way of avoiding this?

 

[cloak]

A funnel and some pvc pipe is another way to add some sand. Be careful though, you don't want to add too much sand at one time and end up smothering the life in your existing sandbed. I wouldn't add any more than 1/4" every day just to be safe. Just keep doing this until you've reached the desired depth.

 

[TellyFish]

oh and to answer your question, we tend to suck up a bit of sand in each water change when we're vacuuming the sand. Any way of avoiding this?

Are you just using a tube? Or is it a store-bought sand vacuum? You can always add a lager diameter tube on to the end of your siphon hose like this: http://www.petazon.com/price/product/Python-50-Ft-No-Spill-Clean-And-Fill.html

Just out of curiosity, do we still have to rinse our sand out if our live sand is already wet?

Sorry, I should have asked what sand you were adding. I usually just rinse my DRY sand to remove dust. Are you adding a live sand product? Not sure I would rinse packaged live sand because I would be afraid I would loose some life... in that case I would probably just add it to the display slowly. As long as you don't bury anything, you will be fine.