Adding substrate to an established tank

[blackbear]

So I started off my Nuvo 20 a few years ago and decided to have a bare bottom tank. No really sure why, i think i preferred the "clean" look that i thought it provided and i wouldn't have to worry about the sand getting dirty or flying around after a water change.

Fast forward a few years and now I don't really like it. There's always a little debris on the bottom of the tank anyways, so it always looks dirty and i feel like my cleanup crew would prefer some sort of sand or crushed coral on the bottom of the tank. Plus, it would help me place corals in the substrate rather than trying to glue them to the rock all the time.

Here's the question-- does anyone have experience adding substrate to an established tank? Will this cause a massive algae bloom? Are there ways to avoid that? Maybe I can add a little substrate in every week? Or should I do it all at once? Or maybe not at all? Is there a safe way to do this? I don't want to add a lot of substrate-- just enough to barely cover the bottom of the tank.

Any insights/help would be appreciated.

 

[mcgyvr]

Simply buy dry (not live) sand and rinse it well (repeat RINSE IT WELL.. multiple times) then add to the tank..
Putting it into a bag and sinking the bag and having the sand slowly slide out of the bag. That and the rinse WELL and all is good..
You may get a minor diatom bloom but it will pass. Nothing to worry about.

Avoid "Sugar Fine/oolite" as its often too fine and will just blow around from powerheads..
Something like "Caribsea special floor reef grade dry sand" or "Tropic Marin Reef Flakes" are great/commonly recommended..

The easiest way to rinse sand is to go outside and open a corner of the bag and stick your garden hose right down in there and just keep plunging it in/out of the sand and let the clouds/dust float to the top and overflow the bag.. Repeat until clear..

 

[blackbear]

Simply buy dry (not live) sand and rinse it well (repeat RINSE IT WELL.. multiple times) then add to the tank..
Putting it into a bag and sinking the bag and having the sand slowly slide out of the bag. That and the rinse WELL and all is good..
You may get a minor diatom bloom but it will pass. Nothing to worry about.

Avoid "Sugar Fine/oolite" as its often too fine and will just blow around from powerheads..
Something like "Caribsea special floor reef grade dry sand" or "Tropic Marin Reef Flakes" are great/commonly recommended..

The easiest way to rinse sand is to go outside and open a corner of the bag and stick your garden hose right down in there and just keep plunging it in/out of the sand and let the clouds/dust float to the top and overflow the bag.. Repeat until clear..

Do you have any recommendations for black sand? I'm definitely leaning towards bigger grained substrate, but I also like the look of black substrate.

As for washing the substrate, should this be done with RODI water?

 

[mcgyvr]

No recommendations for black sand from me..

Use caution if wanting something like "Crushed coral" which tends to be very large grains that often just become a spot for "detritus" to collect and isn't as beneficial as a finer sand bed can be when looking at microfauna and lower oxygen environments for bacteria.

RODI water would be "best" but certainly not required..
I've always just used the garden hose to rinse (straight tap... not RODI) and never had a problem.

 

[amutti]

I always just use a pvc pipe and a funnel to deliver the sand to the bottom.

 

[Dmorty217]

When I have done this, I take the whole bag and submerse it in the tank and open it underwater. It will still cloud the tank but not nearly as much if you were to dump it from the surface. Unless you add hundreds of pounds of sand I wouldn’t expect a nutrient spike resulting in any algae blooms

 

[jerseyboy]

no need to rinse at all. put it in a 2liter soda bottle fill with tank water and put the cap on. put the bottle in your tank upside down and remove cap. sand comes out and dirty water stays in bottle

 

[foreverreef]

The water bottle trick is amazing. I never thought to do that until I read it here just added some black sand to my 90 and it was simple with the 2 liter bottle. Small ranks like my 90 are so different from my big tank. My big tank I used pvc and just poured it in. It worked no problem but I had a bigger mess than with the bottle

 

[clevername]

id second the washing VERY WELL!